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Kamchatka brown bears  

My Planet Experience posted a photo:

Irina (female), Igor and Ivan (males) are the Kamchatka brown bears of La Flèche Zoo Park, La Flèche, France

Kamchatka peninsula is home to the highest recorded density of brown bears on Earth. Population estimates for the peninsula range from 10,000 to 14,000 bears.
However, increasing human access through road development to expand mining and mineral exploration is fragmenting the bears' habitat. Kamchatka brown bears are now becoming rare in some regions close to human settlements.
As many as 2,000 bears are killed every year by poachers who come for the bear's gallbladder that sells for hundreds of dollars in the Asian market to use for folk remedies. Also placing the bears in danger are fishing industries seeking profit in the salmon, and decreasing the bears' richest source of food.
The Kamchatka brown bear is considered to be endangered.

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NASA dumps $65m into building deep space hutches for humans  

Space hotel, anyone?

Living in space is about to get a lot more cushty as NASA invests $65m to be shared between six companies chosen to design and develop deep space habitats.…

 
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Division of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics conference will not take place in Charlotte, North Carolina  
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Alexandra Fogg explains the mathematics behind these measures  
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Eleanor Ambos is known for her work as a brilliant and strange interior designer; it's a passion she's pursued for decades. Nomadique's short film, Eleanor Ambos Interiors, shows how age weakens even the most talented of artists. Ambos is nearly blind as a result of macular degeneration, yet she's determined to continue creating. “It makes me angry,” Ambos says of her deteriorating eyesight. “I'm a spring person, I only like beginnings and not endings.”

 
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Retreat and Delusion: Is the Islamic State Finally Collapsing?  
Terrorist attacks on the West make the Islamic State appear stronger than ever. The reality is that allied forces are well on their way to defeating the group in its core territory. Sources on the ground report that the "caliphate" is disintegrating.  
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Photos of the Day: Aug. 10, 2016  

Explore the news of the day with these images from around the world.  
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The Resource Curse Of Indigenous Peoples  


How the transparency agenda could reverse unjust exploitation of indigenous territories


Alexander Aribalov is an Evenki reindeer herder who lives on the vast steppes of the Sakha Republic in Siberia. His grandfather herded 14,000 domesticated reindeer, which he bred for clothes and food - a job their family have been doing for generations.

When the coal industry moved in, open-pit mines destroyed many of the reindeer grazing grounds, forcing reindeer to change their grazing patterns. Today, Alexander herds a mere 4,000 reindeer and struggles to put food on the table at the end of each day. His fate is shared by 300 million other indigenous peoples who live in countries endowed with large oil, gas, mineral, hydro and timber resources from the Americas to Scandinavia, Russia and Asia.

As we celebrate the international day of the world's indigenous peoples, we must address how indigenous peoples are robbed of their right to sustainable development, now and in the future.

Resource extraction could be a pathway to economic prosperity, but indigenous peoples rarely benefit from the revenues generated by the industry. Instead, they bear the brunt of its environmental and social impacts and remain the most impoverished populations in the world. In Ecuador, for instance, the Quechua's ancestral land is home to the 500km transandean pipeline which has spilled an estimated 16.8 million gallons of oil since 1972, representing one and a half times the Exxon Valdez spill.

Indigenous peoples have historically been economically and politically marginalised. Their land tenure system is systematically challenged by nation states. They are rarely included in decisions-making processes related to the planning and monitoring of large extraction projects, let alone decisions over who should benefit from the revenues generated by these resources.

"Resource extraction could be a pathway to economic prosperity, but indigenous peoples rarely benefit from the revenues generated by the industry"

Most often, consultation is tokenistic and leads to division within communities, although a handful of successful mechanisms for natural resource co-management have been established. When indigenous leaders stand up against mega projects, the cost can be detrimental. Berta Cáceres in Honduras is one of the latest casualties in a struggle that pitches unarmed communities against billion-dollar investors often backed by military or paramilitary forces.

Yet, free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) is now a well-recognized principle in international law. In theory, indigenous peoples have the right to give or withhold their consent for industrial projects that affect their traditional land and customary practices. The UN Declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples reinforces this principle, stating the need to meaningfully consult indigenous peoples prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands.

States also need to provide effective redress mechanisms to mitigate adverse environmental, economic, social or cultural impact. ILO Convention 169, which predates the UN Declaration, also guarantees the rights of indigenous peoples to exert control over their land and resources.

Unfortunately, but perhaps not surprisingly, many resource-rich countries with large indigenous populations have refrained from ratifying the Convention, including the US, Canada, Australia, Russia, Sweden, Finland, and the Philippines.

Interestingly, some of these same countries (US, Canada, the Philippines) are engaging in a number of mandatory and/or voluntary disclosure initiatives focused on the extractive sector. Acknowledging that this sector is more prone to large-scale corruption, these initiatives promote payment transparency, foster corporate accountability, and support financial reform.

"Transparency activists and indigenous rights activists have not been good bedfellows in the past - but this can change"

One such initiative, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), brings together representatives of civil society, governments and companies to establish and implement a transparency standard for the extractive sector. The EITI could provide a crucial opportunity for indigenous peoples to participate in decision-making processes related to natural resource extraction which affect their territories.

However, the EITI standard also lacks any reference to indigenous peoples. The EITI and its civil society constituency have failed to properly reach out to communities and represent them on its International Board. The EITI could learn from the Forest Stewardship Council, a voluntary, multi-stakeholder forest certification scheme, which developed a core principle more than 10 years ago to uphold indigenous peoples' rights of ownership and use of land and resources.

As anti-corruption activists, it is our responsibility to reach out to indigenous peoples affected by the resource curse, to engage them in the transparency movement and effectively support their political mobilisation. Publish What You Pay and its partners need to ensure that indigenous peoples are meaningfully represented in initiatives such as the EITI.

Transparency activists and indigenous rights activists have not been good bedfellows in the past - but this can change. Once we end indigenous peoples' chronic invisibility, people like Alexander will be able to shape the laws and processes that affect indigenous lands, rights and revenues.


#WeAreIndigenous

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Modern Day Dian Fossey of The Amazon  
As a scientist, explorer and conservationist, I have spent much of my professional life in the rainforests of the world trying to understand and preserve these incredible and irreplaceable ecosystems. To many it seems unusual that a former NFL cheerleader would choose to go and live in some of the most remote places on earth and brave all the undeniable challenges and occasional dangers of living in a tropical rain forest.

Mostly my dangers were parasites and disease, although I also had my run-ins with poachers, hunters and rebels. One of my inspirations for going into this line of work, Dian Fossey, was murdered in an attempt to save her beloved gorillas. To me, however, it seems perfectly natural that I do this work, because like Dian, I think these forests and its creatures are spectacular, not to mention biologically important. But some people think I'm brave (or mad) and, for my exploits, I've been labeled by more than one media maven, as the female Indiana Jones.

But I want to share with you the story of a woman who's recently come to my attention and who has faced far more real-life danger than me or any cinematic archaeologist. She comes face to face, not with gorillas, but rather guerillas, and unlike the gentle giants, these are armed and dangerous. To me, she is the modern day Dian Fossey of the Amazon.

I cannot tell you her name or her exact location. Far from a household name, she's an indigenous woman with little outside communication or access to the web. For years now she has faced multiple death threats warning her to stop the work she is doing to preserve their lands and conserve tradition. She continues to do it...but lives her life with a constant armed guard. Now that? That is really is brave...and I am in awe of what she's doing.

So, rewinding just a bit...I've always been well aware that the indigenous people are more knowledgeable and wise about the rainforests they call home, and have throughout my career been welcomed, taken in and, on occasion, even rescued, by the generosity and kindness of the local people. My research teams not only have always included the villagers, but we were dependent on their knowledge and wisdom of these remote and often little explored areas. This is true whether it was during my time in Congo, South America or Madagascar.

But the latter is particularly true during my time in the Amazon region. The Amazon contains over half of the planet's remaining rainforest. It comprises the largest and most biodiverse tract of tropical rainforest in the world. One in ten known terrestrial species in the world lives in this rainforest. The Amazon houses more varieties of plants and animals than any other place on the face of the Earth. Biologically, it is unparalleled.

Simply put, the Amazon is the largest wildlife biome on Earth.

While the Amazon forests are abundant in jaguars and monkeys, these are not their only inhabitants, or the most endangered. The Amazon is also home to hundreds of indigenous tribes. These people are repositories of thousands of years of ancestral knowledge about their unique environment. Without them, important resources, medicinal compounds, diagnostic wisdom and ecological process would be unknown to all of science.

But the Amazon is under great and increasing threat from illegal mining and logging.
Deforestation has already claimed nearly 20 percent of the Amazon's original primary rainforest, and continues at a steady rate. If the Amazon forest is severely degraded or disappears, so diminishes our opportunity to understand this ecosystem and its relationship to other life on Earth, to find new medicines and to fight climate change - the defining environmental challenge of our time.

One and a half acres of rainforest are lost every second.

As Dr. Mark Plotkin, ethnobotanist and co-founder of The Amazon Conservation Team said "Every time a shaman dies it is as if a library is burned down".

But my conservation focus up until just recently has always been primarily on the wildlife and the rainforest itself. It has only been in the last 6 months while I have exclusively been working with The Amazon Conservation Team (ACT), an organization that protects the rainforest by working in close partnership with indigenous peoples that I have become aware that indigenous people and their culture are equally at risk of disappearing. Across the globe, there are an estimated 370 million indigenous people, spanning 90 countries. They speak the majority of the world's estimated 7,000 languages and represent 5,000 different cultures. Yet how much do we hear about them, their plight, or their achievements in mainstream media?

This week, while at ACT headquarters, it was brought to my attention that a little-known celebration, "The International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples" is observed every year on August 9 to promote and protect the rights of the world's indigenous populations.

While the day is not recognized as a public holiday, it is used to teach about indigenous culture, traditions, religion, arts, and history, along with the contributions of indigenous individuals to society. This occasion also identifies achievements and contributions that indigenous people are making to improve world issues such as environmental protection.

So I started doing a little research, and that leads me to this piece. In searching for indigenous people around the globe who are really making a difference but are unsung heroes to the rest of the world, I came upon an extraordinary woman. More than extraordinary. She is a by all definitions of the word: a hero.

As an environmental activist who has gone head to head with local government, mining companies, and even armed militia, she has, so far, survived numerous direct attacks against her life. Her latest mission has resulted in even more threats. Her fear that every day may be her last, are not unfounded. According to Global Witness, 185 environmental activists have been murdered in just 2015.

Although I cannot name her, I can say that she is not alone. Indigenous people are at the forefront of these environmental wars. She is one of many shining examples of the perilous work that indigenous people are doing to save their lands, cultures and traditions. Even in the persistent face of danger.

While these are not often stories or people that make it to mainstream media, this woman should be a household name. And yet, because of the very risky nature of her work as an accomplished environmental activist, she, like many others on the ground fighting the fight, may never be given the acclaim she deserves.

-- 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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Obscured Oceans: What We Don't/Can't See, We Harm  

Image by Dana Ellis Hunnes

I was a child of the early 1980s. Looking back, perhaps with a certain ethereal fondness, it seemed like life was simpler, values were different, people were more in tune with their surroundings; and certainly, more in-tune with each other (no cell phones here!).


My 2 1/2 year-old son on the other hand, is growing up in a world where climate change is real, investing in wildlife conservation is a must, and where biological diversity is falling precipitously and at unprecedented rates.

Roughly two months ago we went out on the ocean, on a boat, to go whale watching, to see some of the most majestic animals on the planet, and long lived. To see one of the biggest brains in the ocean, that somehow manages to live off one of the smallest edible life-forms in the ocean. To see an animal that causes no harm to humans, but almost came to extinction by the hands of humans.

This boating trip that was two months ago? You would have thought it was yesterday. My son talks about it ALL THE TIME. In his short-lived life, it made a huge impression. He LOVED those whales and dolphins. In fact, hundreds of dolphins swam by, almost in unison. Their magnificence and their ability to bow-ride in unison and with grace was unlike anything we had ever seen. It was unprecedented and cannot be understated.

But, as adults where has our sense of wonder gone?

It seems we are all buried in our phones, in our work, in our "problems" that we forget there are BIGGER problems than ourselves occurring in the world. Right now. On land. In our Oceans. And, we are not doing enough to help.

We ignore what happens under the ocean's surface, because we cannot see it. Therefore, everything must be OK, that the oceans must still be pristine waterscapes, unmarred, and untouched.

But, that is the problem.

In the 18th, 19th and early 20th century's humans nearly caused most whales to go extinct, FOREVER. And, while they are still recovering, even today some nations still engage in whaling, and sometimes for "fun."

Ghost nets--abandoned fishing gear--resides in the oceans, sometimes miles wide obliterating, drowning, trapping, destroying everything in their wake.

Yet, from the surface, everything seems fine. We can't see those nets, we can't see their path of destruction. All we see is a "beautiful" but obscured ocean.

Nets, often a mile long and a couple-hundred years deep, are often splayed out in the oceans to capture fish. As they are brought on deck, they bring with them not only the intended fish, but unintended fish, seals, dolphins, seabirds, sharks, coral reefs, almost anything marine you can think of. The whole gamut of oceanic biological diversity.

Now, imagine the African Savanna. Imagine a net a mile long and a couple hundred yards tall being dragged across the plains. Imagine giraffes, zebras, elephants, hyenas, meer cats, wild dogs, hippopotamuses, any living thing, birds, trees, bushes being dragged into the net; injured, suffocating.

You can't imagine it, can you?

Because, we wouldn't allow this to happen on land.

No, on land things are done differently. The destruction may be no less to wildlife, from culling elephants and poaching, to destroying habitat via clear-cutting. But, the difference is, on land, there is (some) transparency. We can see what we're doing. It's evident in satellite images.

In the the oceans, it's as bad, if not worse. The difference? It's obscured.

Whether on land, or in the seas, it's atrocious and a blight on humanity.

But, this is perhaps the problem. Countries control land. The oceans are a global commons (once outside a country's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ)).

Nobody owns the oceans; yet, everybody owns the oceans.

With no single country owning the oceans, everyone does as they please; pillaging, removing wildlife, dumping trash, water pollution, everything you can think of.

With no single country owning the oceans, no one is responsible for the cleanup, for the conservation, for the protection, for the oversight.

Therein lies one of the problems.

There are conservation organizations, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES). But, from what I can tell these organizations do not really have regulatory or disciplinary oversight.

Thus, the damage continues. And, because we cannot readily see it, we cannot believe it. We cannot believe the oceans are running out of fish - THEY ARE. 80% of fish stocks globally are either overexploited or fully exploited.

We cannot believe there will be more plastic in our oceans than fish - BUT THERE WILL BE BY 2048.

We cannot believe there are mass oceanic "graves" where animals can no longer live because of dead zones caused by human-waste waters and other toxic chemicals.

This is the problem with Obscured Oceans.

I wish desperately that we could bring out our inner toddler. Every day. The one in all of us who marvels at nature, at the sky, at the oceans, the one who remembers that fateful day on the ocean like it was yesterday, today, and hopefully tomorrow.


image credit: Huffington Post Images


That is my hope, my dream. That we all remember how much we depend on our oceans, how much we need them, and how much they have provided us. They deserve our help and our protection.

Please refer back to my previous posts (Plastic: it's what's for dinner and Apathy to our Overfished Oceans) for some recommendations to protect the oceans.


To contact Dana: recipe.for.survival@gmail.com
Twitter: recipe4survival
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RecipeForSurvival/
PlanetExperts: http://www.planetexperts.com/author/danahunnes/

-- 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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Refocusing on the Facts for World Lion Day  

It's another hot humid day in Zululand, South Africa and the steel cable bolted to the truck I'm sitting in the back of snaps taught. The truck's tires slid a bit in the sandy dirt. On the end of that cable are five hungry lions clawing at the piece of meat we've tied to it. As they grip into the bait with their teeth, we quickly learn that the cable is a bit shorter than anticipated and I am a bit closer than I want to be to this pride of peckish lions.

Before I have too much time to consider my predicament, the second truck carrying our veterinarian flanks the distracted lions and, with pinpoint marksmanship and a quick draw, each one soon has a dart in its rump. It won't be long now until they are fast asleep and on a 3,000-kilometer journey to the country of Rwanda. These will be the first lions in Rwanda in over two decades.

Last year World Lion Day was dominated by anti-trophy hunting dialogue after the recent death of the 13-year-old Zimbabwean national park lion, Cecil. For conservationists on the ground in Africa, the immediate worldwide outcry of support for lions was inspiring, a glimmer of hope for widespread awareness and potential funding for protected areas.

I advocate for this World Lion Day to refocus on the real threats facing lions today.

The focus on trophy hunting overshadowed the actual causes of lion population declines. I advocate for this World Lion Day to refocus on the real threats facing lions today.

Today there are as few as 20,000 wild lions left in in the world (including the single population of Asiatic lions in India), compared to the half a million in the 1940s. This dramatic and continued decline in lion numbers is not a result of circumstances such as Cecil's. While humans are the greatest threat to lion population success, that threat is not from foreigners with hunting rifles, but rather from the communities living alongside wildlife as neighbors.

Two Threats

The two main threats that lions currently face are conflict with humans (retaliatory or preemptive killing) and loss of habitat and prey. Both of these are related one way or another to Africa's ongoing population boom. Now with 1.2 billion people, the continent of Africa is the fastest growing human population on Earth, and is on track to double again by 2050. A large portion of this growth is occurring in West and  Central Africa, where in 20 years Nigeria will have the third largest human population in the world with over 400 million people. With this many people comes an increase in human-wildlife conflict, making it no surprise that lions were placed on the U.S. endangered species list at the end of last year.

With the expansion of West and  Central Africa's human population into previously “wild” areas, people and wildlife are living in closer proximity. They are eating “bushmeat”, the same prey animals that lions use (West, Central, and East Africa have seen an 85 percent decrease in wild prey animals), they are extracting resources and creating agriculture — transforming and degrading lion habitat (lions now occupy less than 8 percent of their historic range) they bring their livestock with them. These three factors create the perfect storm for lion-human conflict.

In countries like Kenya, the average herder loses U.S. $209 annually from cattle taken by predators such as lions. For people living near national parks in the central African country of Cameroon, this accounts for at least 20 percent of their financial losses. Persecution of lions is thus rampant, as the cats are perceived as having a negative economic value for people. They are shot, poisoned, and snared, either in retaliation for property loss or for the prevention of it. Lion persecution alone accounts for 5 percent of the population decline in Kenya.

Southern Africa continues to stand in dichotomy with the rest of Africa. Lion populations in the countries of Namibia, Botswana, South Africa, and Zimbabwe have actually increased by 12 percent in recent years, while in the rest of Africa lion numbers have declined by 60 percent.

There are two major causes for this difference: low densities of people and fences.

Less People = Less Conflict

Across vast areas of southern Africa human density is low compared with the rest of sub-Saharan Africa. Less people means less conflict.

The second factor is a result of different wildlife management practices. Many protected areas in southern Africa and most in South Africa are entirely fenced. There is a clear line between wildlife and people; in most of the parks I work in you can see lions and other wildlife virtually next to human communities, separated only by a fence. There is no interaction with the predators other than for ecotourism, and thus there is no conflict or cause for persecution.

Ring-fencing our wildlife does come at a considerable cost, both economically and management-wise. As most parks in South Africa are considerably smaller in size than their northern counterparts, the need for intensive management increases. 100,000 ha (247,105 acres) is known as the “golden number”, or the size where natural processes can occur without management intervention. As most of our protected areas in southern Africa are not this large, we are constantly struggling to contain our lion populations.

Lions breed like rabbits in small- to medium-size parks, for a number of reasons. Put simply, the life for a lion is relatively relaxed in these smaller parks and so they reproduce quickly, with most cubs surviving; populations can become exponentially larger within months. This means that while the rest of the continent struggles to keep its lion populations viable, we are constantly working on how to reduce our populations and growth rates. Efforts include translocations of individuals, swapping males to mimic natural processes, and even contraception programs. In South Africa, we struggle even to donate lions to the different parks, as we all face the same issue of having too many of the big cats.

Relocation of Lions from South to North

Most readers would by now be wondering if we should move lions from the south to the north to help repopulate an endangered species in the rest of Africa. While most geneticists cringe at this idea of mixing subspecies, in my opinion it's too late to split hairs over genetic purity. However, this doesn't remove the logistical mayhem of moving lions between countries and finding the funding to do so.

In June of 2015, I was lucky enough to be a part of a team that donated lions from two parks in South Africa to Akagera National Park in Rwanda. Although we translocate many lions within South Africa, this operation felt particularly meaningful. More than two decades after lions were extirpated from the central African country, the lions I've watched grow up would become the pioneers in repopulating Rwanda, the most densely human-populated African country. Last month Africa National Parks reported a litter of lion cubs was born in this new pride, the first to be born in the country in this millennium. Initiatives like this show that international translocations and partnerships can be forged for the sake of conservation and that the dichotomy can be mutually beneficial.

To me World Lion Day is about recognizing that even the most iconic, beloved charismatic species, the one we call “king”, is becoming more endangered each year and cannot be saved by our emotions and sentiments alone. The threats that lions face today are far more complex and profound than a dentist with a bow and arrow.

We need to work towards innovative solutions to ensure the safety and survival of both local human communities and the lions who coexist with them. If we cannot properly protect one of the world's most iconic species, what chance do the rest of them have?

 

A Greenwich, CT native, Axel Hunnicutt holds degrees in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and Wildlife Management. He lives in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa, where he runs the research programs for Wild Tomorrow Fund.

 
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ExxonMobil's Latest Campaign To Stymie Federal Climate Action  

ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson acknowledges climate change is a "serious issue," but he is still trying to undermine government efforts to curb carbon emissions.

Recent press accounts report that ExxonMobil is now actively promoting a carbon tax. If true, that's big news. It would mean that, after nearly 20 years of blocking action on climate change, the world's biggest energy company has finally come to its senses.

But wait a minute. If something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. So one might well ask: Is this anything more than a PR ploy?

Let's take a closer look.

As I reported earlier this year, ExxonMobil has paid lip service to the idea of a carbon tax since 2009 but, all the while, has continued to fund federal lawmakers who resolutely oppose it. In March 2015, for example, the Senate voted 58 to 42 to pass a budget amendment prohibiting a carbon tax. Thirty of the 40 senators who had received ExxonMobil campaign contributions since 2010 voted in favor of the prohibition. Meanwhile, in March 2013, 156 House members cosponsored a nonbinding resolution stating that "a carbon tax would be detrimental to American families and businesses and is not in the best interest of the United States." Ninety-three percent of the cosponsors were funded by -- you guessed it -- ExxonMobil.

OK, but that was then, and things can change, right? After all, last December, Ken Cohen, the company's outgoing vice president of public and government affairs, blogged about ExxonMobil's strong support for a carbon tax, noting that the company has been holding "countless private briefings with members of Congress on carbon tax policy options."

So how have the company's friends on Capitol Hill responded?

In June, the House passed a resolution stating "a carbon tax would be detrimental to the United States economy" on a 237 to 163 vote. Eighty-five percent of the House members who voted for the resolution received ExxonMobil political donations since 2013; 82 of them are documented climate science deniers. By contrast, only 26 of the representatives who voted against the resolution -- a measly 16 percent -- received ExxonMobil money.

The numbers are unambiguous: When it comes to a carbon tax, there's no escaping the fact that ExxonMobil still funds legislators who don't favor it and, by the same token, doesn't support many who do.

Disingenuous Origins

In his December blog post, Cohen traced ExxonMobil's support for a carbon tax back to January 2009, when company CEO Rex Tillerson endorsed it in a speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. Cohen, however, neglected to explain the context for this pronounced break with ExxonMobil's long-held position against any policy that would curb carbon emissions: Tillerson was trying to derail momentum on Capitol Hill for a different approach.

Back then, Congress was seriously considering instituting a cap-and-trade system, modeled after the George H. W. Bush administration's successful plan to reduce acid rain, which would have set a cap on overall carbon emissions and established a regulated marketplace where polluters could buy and sell emissions allowances. The less carbon they emitted, the less they would pay.

The European Union had instituted such a system in 2005 and, although there were disagreements over the details, the idea of a U.S. cap-and-trade system had the support of a number of environmental organizations, including the Environmental Defense Fund and Natural Resources Defense Council, and more than two dozen companies, including oil giants BP America, ConocoPhillips and Shell. Perhaps most important, the plan had the backing of President-elect Barack Obama and congressional Democrats, who then controlled both houses of Congress.

Tillerson was having none of it. "A carbon tax strikes us as a more direct, transparent and effective approach" than a cap-and-trade system, he said in that January 2009 speech. "It is the most efficient means of reflecting the cost of carbon in all economic decisions, from investments made by companies to fuel and product choices made by consumers." Any carbon tax, he added, should be revenue-neutral, meaning it should be offset by reductions in income and corporate taxes.

But there was a major obstacle in the way of Tillerson's preferred solution: It had no political support. When California Rep. Pete Stark proposed a carbon tax just the year before, it attracted only three cosponsors.

Tillerson, who surely knew Congress wasn't about to pass a carbon tax, publicly conceded it faced long odds. "Right now, any talk of imposing new taxes would rattle the markets and individuals," he told E&E News, a trade publication, the same day he spoke at the Woodrow Wilson Center. "...But probably later this year, I think they're going to get around to want to further investigate what their alternatives are."

As it turned out, the House narrowly passed a cap-and-trade bill on a 219 to 212 vote in June 2009. In the Senate, however, it was a different story. The legislation never made it out of committee for a number of complicated reasons, but the fact that fossil fuel interests had plenty of friends in the upper chamber -- many of them longtime recipients of ExxonMobil political donations -- no doubt played a significant role. The bottom line? ExxonMobil ultimately got what it wanted by plugging a carbon tax: gridlock.

Beyond the Rhetoric

There has been some speculation about what motivated ExxonMobil to recently ramp up its pro-carbon tax rhetoric. First, with multiple investigations underway by state attorneys general of the company for misleading its shareholders and the general public about climate risks, it likely feels the need to polish its tarnished image. Second, the company knows that last December's historic U.N. climate meeting in Paris, where 195 countries committed to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius, means that it will be harder to maintain the status quo. Third, if and when Congress does seriously consider a carbon tax, ExxonMobil wants to position itself to influence the debate. And finally, ExxonMobil would likely benefit more than its competitors from a carbon tax, because such a tax would favor the cleaner-burning natural gas over coal and ExxonMobil has the largest natural gas reserves of any U.S. company.

These are all plausible reasons, except for one thing: The evidence suggests that the company is still doing what it can to obstruct policies to combat climate change.

Last fall, for example, California Rep. Ted Lieu -- who has not received any ExxonMobil campaign contributions -- met with the company's lobbyists in what was presumably one of the "countless private briefings" Cohen cited in his December blog. Lieu asked the lobbyists what they would do if he drafted carbon tax legislation. They replied that "they would take a look at it," Lieu told InsideClimate News. "They didn't say they wouldn't support it and they didn't say they would," he added. "It's clear that they are not going around championing their position. If they actually believe this internally, then they ought to do so in a much louder way than just quietly sticking it on a website."

In the Senate, meanwhile, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Brian Schatz of Hawaii have introduced a carbon tax bill, the "American Opportunity Carbon Fee Act." Has ExxonMobil endorsed it or lobbied on its behalf? According to Whitehouse and Schatz, no.

"Regarding ExxonMobil's alleged seven years of support for a carbon fee, we've seen no meaningful evidence of that," the senators said in a letter they sent to the company just yesterday. "None of the top executives that make up ExxonMobil's management team has expressed interest in meeting with any of us to discuss the Whitehouse-Schatz proposal or any carbon fee legislation."

Conversely, House Committee on Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton, a climate science denier, explained to Fox News host Steve Doocy in December 2012 that he told ExxonMobil lobbyists a carbon tax was a "bad idea." "I sat down with the Exxon folks a couple of months ago," Upton said, "and let it be known that this is not a proposal that ... is going to be coming through in the House." Nevertheless, ExxonMobil donated more to Upton during the current election cycle than it did in either the 2012 or 2014 cycles.

Besides its political donations and lobbying, the company is still spending millions of dollars a year on think tanks, advocacy groups and trade associations that dispute climate science and disparage climate policies, including a carbon tax. Just last month, ExxonMobil was a lead sponsor of the American Legislative Exchange Council's (ALEC) annual conference, which featured Oren Cass, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a self-described free-market think tank ExxonMobil has been funding since 1998. According to one conference participant, Cass "absolutely eviscerated the case for conservatives adopting a carbon tax." Conference organizers also provided ALEC state legislator members with a sample resolution against the Environmental Protection Agency's plan to curb power plant carbon emissions.

ExxonMobil doesn't just rely on paid surrogates, however, to spread disinformation and block government action. Company executives may sing the praises of a carbon tax, but they still find time to misrepresent climate science and question the necessity of taking any action at all.

Climate Science Denial Starts at the Top

In March 2013 -- the same month 146 ExxonMobil-funded House members cosponsored a resolution against a carbon tax -- Tillerson appeared on on PBS's Charlie Rose, ostensibly to promote one. The CEO told Rose he preferred a carbon tax to a cap-and-trade system, but then he doubted whether scientists knew enough to warrant one. "The facts remain there are uncertainties around climate change, why it's changing, [and] what the principal drivers of climate change are," Tillerson claimed, repudiating the consensus among climate scientists worldwide. He also falsely claimed there is no scientific evidence of a link between global warming and extreme weather events.

Two years later, at ExxonMobil's 2015 annual shareholder meeting, Tillerson again argued that climate models are not accurate enough to justify a dramatic shift away from fossil fuels. "What if everything we do," he asked, "it turns out our models are lousy and we don't get the effects we predict?" He recommended continuing to burn fossil fuels and adapting to whatever happens, be it sea level rise or crop failures. "Mankind has this enormous capacity to deal with adversity," he said, "and those solutions will present themselves as the realities become clear."

Contrary to Tillerson's assertions, climate models have proven to be extremely accurate. A March 2013 peer-reviewed paper in the journal Nature Geoscience, for example, found that the models accurately predicted the rise in global temperatures over the previous 15 years to within a few hundredths of a degree. No matter. When given the chance to set the record straight at this year's shareholder meeting in late May, Tillerson would not back down. "My view on the competencies of the models," he said, "has really not changed."

Perhaps the most revealing statement demonstrating the depth of ExxonMobil's support for a carbon tax, however, came the day before the House resolution vote in June -- the one where nearly 90 percent of the ExxonMobil-funded House members casting a ballot voted yes, a carbon tax would hurt the U.S. economy. A Huffington Post reporter contacted ExxonMobil Media Relations Manager Alan Jeffers to find out what the company had to say. Given the company's supposedly heightened interest in persuading Congress to pass a carbon tax, one would have expected Jeffers to register the company's opposition. Certainly he would explain why the resolution was misguided and tell House members to vote no. It was what some would call a teachable moment.

So how did Jeffers respond?

"We're not commenting on the resolution."

Elliott Negin is a senior writer at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Dave Anderson and Jayne Piepenburg provided research for this article. ExxonMobil federal campaign contribution data was supplied by the Center for Responsive Politics.

-- 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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Brexit Britain: HP Sauce vs BBC.co.uk - choices that defined voters  

Top 10 brand loves - the new social division

Forget Scotland and London vs. England and Wales, never mind old against young, get over city versus rural rust belt.…

 
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DR JIM STAMPS 30TH ANNIV CITES ENDANGERED SPECIES FDC UNITED NATIONS 2003 https://t.co/tJ4NPRQ7bi https://t.co/6mCh70lP6S 
https://t.co/tJ4NPRQ7bi 

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Obstacles  

Kieran Williams Photography posted a photo:

 
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ExxonMobil's Latest Campaign To Stymie Federal Climate Action  

ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson acknowledges climate change is a "serious issue," but he is still trying to undermine government efforts to curb carbon emissions.

Recent press accounts report that ExxonMobil is now actively promoting a carbon tax. If true, that's big news. It would mean that, after nearly 20 years of blocking action on climate change, the world's biggest energy company has finally come to its senses.

But wait a minute. If something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. So one might well ask: Is this anything more than a PR ploy?

Let's take a closer look.

As I reported earlier this year, ExxonMobil has paid lip service to the idea of a carbon tax since 2009 but, all the while, has continued to fund federal lawmakers who resolutely oppose it. In March 2015, for example, the Senate voted 58 to 42 to pass a budget amendment prohibiting a carbon tax. Thirty of the 40 senators who had received ExxonMobil campaign contributions since 2010 voted in favor of the prohibition. Meanwhile, in March 2013, 156 House members cosponsored a nonbinding resolution stating that "a carbon tax would be detrimental to American families and businesses and is not in the best interest of the United States." Ninety-three percent of the cosponsors were funded by -- you guessed it -- ExxonMobil.

OK, but that was then, and things can change, right? After all, last December, Ken Cohen, the company's outgoing vice president of public and government affairs, blogged about ExxonMobil's strong support for a carbon tax, noting that the company has been holding "countless private briefings with members of Congress on carbon tax policy options."

So how have the company's friends on Capitol Hill responded?

In June, the House passed a resolution stating "a carbon tax would be detrimental to the United States economy" on a 237 to 163 vote. Eighty-five percent of the House members who voted for the resolution received ExxonMobil political donations since 2013; 82 of them are documented climate science deniers. By contrast, only 26 of the representatives who voted against the resolution -- a measly 16 percent -- received ExxonMobil money.

The numbers are unambiguous: When it comes to a carbon tax, there's no escaping the fact that ExxonMobil still funds legislators who don't favor it and, by the same token, doesn't support many who do.

Disingenuous Origins

In his December blog post, Cohen traced ExxonMobil's support for a carbon tax back to January 2009, when company CEO Rex Tillerson endorsed it in a speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. Cohen, however, neglected to explain the context for this pronounced break with ExxonMobil's long-held position against any policy that would curb carbon emissions: Tillerson was trying to derail momentum on Capitol Hill for a different approach.

Back then, Congress was seriously considering instituting a cap-and-trade system, modeled after the George H. W. Bush administration's successful plan to reduce acid rain, which would have set a cap on overall carbon emissions and established a regulated marketplace where polluters could buy and sell emissions allowances. The less carbon they emitted, the less they would pay.

The European Union had instituted such a system in 2005 and, although there were disagreements over the details, the idea of a U.S. cap-and-trade system had the support of a number of environmental organizations, including the Environmental Defense Fund and Natural Resources Defense Council, and more than two dozen companies, including oil giants BP America, ConocoPhillips and Shell. Perhaps most important, the plan had the backing of President-elect Barack Obama and congressional Democrats, who then controlled both houses of Congress.

Tillerson was having none of it. "A carbon tax strikes us as a more direct, transparent and effective approach" than a cap-and-trade system, he said in that January 2009 speech. "It is the most efficient means of reflecting the cost of carbon in all economic decisions, from investments made by companies to fuel and product choices made by consumers." Any carbon tax, he added, should be revenue-neutral, meaning it should be offset by reductions in income and corporate taxes.

But there was a major obstacle in the way of Tillerson's preferred solution: It had no political support. When California Rep. Pete Stark proposed a carbon tax just the year before, it attracted only three cosponsors.

Tillerson, who surely knew Congress wasn't about to pass a carbon tax, publicly conceded it faced long odds. "Right now, any talk of imposing new taxes would rattle the markets and individuals," he told E&E News, a trade publication, the same day he spoke at the Woodrow Wilson Center. "...But probably later this year, I think they're going to get around to want to further investigate what their alternatives are."

As it turned out, the House narrowly passed a cap-and-trade bill on a 219 to 212 vote in June 2009. In the Senate, however, it was a different story. The legislation never made it out of committee for a number of complicated reasons, but the fact that fossil fuel interests had plenty of friends in the upper chamber -- many of them longtime recipients of ExxonMobil political donations -- no doubt played a significant role. The bottom line? ExxonMobil ultimately got what it wanted by plugging a carbon tax: gridlock.

Beyond the Rhetoric

There has been some speculation about what motivated ExxonMobil to recently ramp up its pro-carbon tax rhetoric. First, with multiple investigations underway by state attorneys general of the company for misleading its shareholders and the general public about climate risks, it likely feels the need to polish its tarnished image. Second, the company knows that last December's historic U.N. climate meeting in Paris, where 195 countries committed to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius, means that it will be harder to maintain the status quo. Third, if and when Congress does seriously consider a carbon tax, ExxonMobil wants to position itself to influence the debate. And finally, ExxonMobil would likely benefit more than its competitors from a carbon tax, because such a tax would favor the cleaner-burning natural gas over coal and ExxonMobil has the largest natural gas reserves of any U.S. company.

These are all plausible reasons, except for one thing: The evidence suggests that the company is still doing what it can to obstruct policies to combat climate change.

Last fall, for example, California Rep. Ted Lieu -- who has not received any ExxonMobil campaign contributions -- met with the company's lobbyists in what was presumably one of the "countless private briefings" Cohen cited in his December blog. Lieu asked the lobbyists what they would do if he drafted carbon tax legislation. They replied that "they would take a look at it," Lieu told InsideClimate News. "They didn't say they wouldn't support it and they didn't say they would," he added. "It's clear that they are not going around championing their position. If they actually believe this internally, then they ought to do so in a much louder way than just quietly sticking it on a website."

In the Senate, meanwhile, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Brian Schatz of Hawaii have introduced a carbon tax bill, the "American Opportunity Carbon Fee Act." Has ExxonMobil endorsed it or lobbied on its behalf? According to Whitehouse and Schatz, no.

"Regarding ExxonMobil's alleged seven years of support for a carbon fee, we've seen no meaningful evidence of that," the senators said in a letter they sent to the company just yesterday. "None of the top executives that make up ExxonMobil's management team has expressed interest in meeting with any of us to discuss the Whitehouse-Schatz proposal or any carbon fee legislation."

Conversely, House Committee on Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton, a climate science denier, explained to Fox News host Steve Doocy in December 2012 that he told ExxonMobil lobbyists a carbon tax was a "bad idea." "I sat down with the Exxon folks a couple of months ago," Upton said, "and let it be known that this is not a proposal that ... is going to be coming through in the House." Nevertheless, ExxonMobil donated more to Upton during the current election cycle than it did in either the 2012 or 2014 cycles.

Besides its political donations and lobbying, the company is still spending millions of dollars a year on think tanks, advocacy groups and trade associations that dispute climate science and disparage climate policies, including a carbon tax. Just last month, ExxonMobil was a lead sponsor of the American Legislative Exchange Council's (ALEC) annual conference, which featured Oren Cass, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a self-described free-market think tank ExxonMobil has been funding since 1998. According to one conference participant, Cass "absolutely eviscerated the case for conservatives adopting a carbon tax." Conference organizers also provided ALEC state legislator members with a sample resolution against the Environmental Protection Agency's plan to curb power plant carbon emissions.

ExxonMobil doesn't just rely on paid surrogates, however, to spread disinformation and block government action. Company executives may sing the praises of a carbon tax, but they still find time to misrepresent climate science and question the necessity of taking any action at all.

Climate Science Denial Starts at the Top

In March 2013 -- the same month 146 ExxonMobil-funded House members cosponsored a resolution against a carbon tax -- Tillerson appeared on on PBS's Charlie Rose, ostensibly to promote one. The CEO told Rose he preferred a carbon tax to a cap-and-trade system, but then he doubted whether scientists knew enough to warrant one. "The facts remain there are uncertainties around climate change, why it's changing, [and] what the principal drivers of climate change are," Tillerson claimed, repudiating the consensus among climate scientists worldwide. He also falsely claimed there is no scientific evidence of a link between global warming and extreme weather events.

Two years later, at ExxonMobil's 2015 annual shareholder meeting, Tillerson again argued that climate models are not accurate enough to justify a dramatic shift away from fossil fuels. "What if everything we do," he asked, "it turns out our models are lousy and we don't get the effects we predict?" He recommended continuing to burn fossil fuels and adapting to whatever happens, be it sea level rise or crop failures. "Mankind has this enormous capacity to deal with adversity," he said, "and those solutions will present themselves as the realities become clear."

Contrary to Tillerson's assertions, climate models have proven to be extremely accurate. A March 2013 peer-reviewed paper in the journal Nature Geoscience, for example, found that the models accurately predicted the rise in global temperatures over the previous 15 years to within a few hundredths of a degree. No matter. When given the chance to set the record straight at this year's shareholder meeting in late May, Tillerson would not back down. "My view on the competencies of the models," he said, "has really not changed."

Perhaps the most revealing statement demonstrating the depth of ExxonMobil's support for a carbon tax, however, came the day before the House resolution vote in June -- the one where nearly 90 percent of the ExxonMobil-funded House members casting a ballot voted yes, a carbon tax would hurt the U.S. economy. A Huffington Post reporter contacted ExxonMobil Media Relations Manager Alan Jeffers to find out what the company had to say. Given the company's supposedly heightened interest in persuading Congress to pass a carbon tax, one would have expected Jeffers to register the company's opposition. Certainly he would explain why the resolution was misguided and tell House members to vote no. It was what some would call a teachable moment.

So how did Jeffers respond?

"We're not commenting on the resolution."

Elliott Negin is a senior writer at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Dave Anderson and Jayne Piepenburg provided research for this article. ExxonMobil federal campaign contribution data was supplied by the Center for Responsive Politics.

-- 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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Whales dive slower and feed less  in response to shipping noise  
The noise from shipping is disrupting natural behaviour of humpback whales and could lead to a long term decline in their numbers  
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Celebrating India's Asiatic Lions on World Lion Day  

World Lion Day celebrates all sub-species of lion, raises worldwide awareness of conservation programs, and brings attention to the threats they face everywhere. Much of the attention is on the African lion, but today we also want to celebrate and appreciate India's Asiatic lions, and those working to protect them and their habitat.

Asiatic lions, (Panthera leo persica), are one of the seven sub-species of lions in the world. There are a little over 500 of them left.

They live in the Gir National Forest in the state of Gujarat, India, and close to nearby communities in the area. They differ from the African lion in size, (they are slightly smaller). Male manes of Asiatic lions are less full than those of their African counterpart, thus, their ears are more prominent. Males tend to not live with the females of the pride unless they are mating or have a large kill. They are listed as Endangered (very high risk of extinction in the wild) by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Threats for the Asiatic Lion

With so few Astatic lions left and living in one small part of the Gir, one disease or natural disaster could reduce the population to zero. While these lions are known to only be found in the Gir, they sometimes roam into nearly human habitats. According to Wildlife Conservation Trust of India, there are debates about relocating a small number of the lions to other parts of the country to conserve and boost the lion population.

Bhushan Pandya is a wildlife photographer and conservationist who serves on the Gujarat State Board for Wildlife (SBWL). The SBWL is opposed to a scheme to reintroduce some of the Gir's lions to a sanctuary in India's Madhya Pradesh state, he says. “A lion translocation project has been going on at Kuno Palpur Sanctuary in the state of Madhya Pradesh. The SBWL and many other lion-lovers have been opposing it. There was a long legal battle fought in the Honorable Supreme Court of India. The Apex Court on 15th April, 2013, gave a sad and surprising verdict in favour of the translocation. The Wildlife Conservation Trust, Rajkot (WCT) has filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Apex Court praying to reconsider the unfortunate verdict.”

Opposition to the relocation focuses on the risk of increased poaching, human-lion conflict, a poor wild prey base, and the area earmarked for relocation is a known tiger corridor.

Other threats for the Asiatic lion in general are illegal wildlife trade, speeding vehicles on roads, trains, and open wells.

But in Gujarat, the Asiatic lion is considered a symbol of Gurjarati pride, and it is celebrated for bringing tourists to the area to view and admire them.

“Almost all tourists, whether new or regular ones, from all over world come to Gir to see lions in their natural home because Gir and its surrounding areas have been the last home of this majestic species,“explains Bhushan Pandya. “However, tourism has never been the priority over lion conservation. Less than 9 percent of Gir PA is open for tourists.”

Conservation Activities

Asiatic lion conservation programs are managed through a number of agencies, including the Indian government, and Indian wildlife law enforcement. The Zoological Society of London operates training for Gir forest rangers in tracking lions, monitoring pride population, and identifying threats, using GPS devices and other pieces of electronic equipment.  Conservation efforts also take place at the Sakkarbaug Zoo in Gujarat. The veterinarians there play a valuable role in rehabilitating injured lions with a view to releasing them back to the wild. Educational efforts are ongoing with local human populations to help them learn to live with the Asiatic lions in their space.

The Asiatic lions of India are an iconic species, beloved and protected in their range. Like all animals that are cherished though, there are heated debates about conservation and protection.

 
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Here's What's Keeping College Students From Getting The Sleep They Need  

Late last month, I visited the California offices of Chegg, a higher education company that specializes in helping college students with everything from affordable textbook rentals to online tutoring. Lately, Chegg has committed to gaining a deeper understanding of another subject central to college students' lives: sleep. And as Chegg's CEO Dan Rosensweig and I began a conversation with an audience of Chegg employees, Dan shared the results of a new Chegg survey on the sleep habits of college students.

The survey's findings bring valuable data to a familiar problem: for an alarming number of students, college has been turned into one long training ground for burnout. The motto "sleep, grades, social life: pick two," or some version of this, can be heard on campuses across the country. The combination of academic pressures, social opportunities -- and for many, newfound freedoms and the resulting challenge of time management -- creates an environment where sleep doesn't get the respect it deserves.

So as thousands of young people across the country prepare to head off to college, here are a few findings from the Chegg study -- which surveyed 473 students from a mix of public and private colleges -- that I found most illuminating.

Most students know there is a link between sleeping and academic performance.

Over half of the respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that students who do better in school probably get more sleep. (They're right, of course. A 2014 study by the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota showed that the effect of sleep deprivation on grades is roughly equivalent to binge drinking and drug use.)

And the vast majority of students want to get the sleep they need.

Fully 84 percent said 8 or more hours would be "ideal" on a school night.

But very few are meeting that goal.

Only 16 percent usually get 8 or more hours on a school night, with far more (79 percent) sleeping 5 to 7 hours a night.

Today's college students are constantly connected.

Students overwhelmingly cited time spent online and with electronic devices as significant obstacles to sleep. Asked to name the reasons that keep them from sleeping, 51 percent cited too much time online doing non-school related activities -- second only to having too much homework.

Even in bed.

A whopping 86 percent said they take their devices to bed with them -- for email, texting and other non-school activities. And 90 percent leave their phones on when they go to sleep.

The good news?

Chegg's survey found that most college students have plenty of free time each day (much of it, for better or worse, is spent online). So there's an opportunity for students to set aside some of that time for sleep, whether that means going to bed 30 minutes earlier or finding time during the day for a nap.

And the fact that so many students know how much sleep they should be getting, and are aware of how tethered they are to their devices, is at least a first step in changing habits. As more studies like this emerge -- and as I was researching The Sleep Revolution, I was struck by the sheer number of new studies adding to our understanding of sleep's vital role in every aspect of our lives -- people will be more equipped to make changes, even small ones, to help them get the sleep they need.

That's why HuffPost launched the Sleep Revolution College Tour, and why we continue to tell stories around sleep's impact on our lives -- everything from the military's rediscovery of sleep as an essential tool of judgment to the ways athletes increasingly view it as the ultimate performance enhancer. As we approach the start of another academic year, with all its possibilities, there's no better time than now to renew our relationship with sleep and savor all the benefits it brings.

-- 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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Agostino Scilla Scientist of the Day Agostino Scilla,...  

http://lhldigital.lindahall.org/cdm/ref/collection/emblematic/id/62


http://lhldigital.lindahall.org/cdm/ref/collection/earththeory/id/16499


https://storestoriescambridge.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/scla-tii.jpg


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http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/portrait-of-an-artist-said-to-be-andrea-sacchi-32206

Agostino Scilla Scientist of the Day

Agostino Scilla, a Sicilian painter and naturalist, was born Aug. 10, 1629.

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Hungerford Bridge  

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Alien oceans: Is there life in the solar system's secret seas?  
Chemical clues indicate that the subsurface oceans of icy moons like Europa and Enceladus are the best spots to look for biological activity  
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Why The Airline Industry Could Keep Suffering System Failures Like Delta's  

Delta's massive outage wasn't the first malfunction to wreak havoc on an airline. The industry's systems are complex and require high security, which can make them more prone to shutdowns.

 
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Oil Traders Mourn The Loss Of Yahoo Messenger  

Since the late 1990s, oil traders have used Yahoo Messenger as their main communication tool. The new version, however, does not meet the industry's standards for compliance.

 
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Researchers Study Effects Of Social Media On Young Minds  

Teens showed an image that was deemed to have lots of "likes" tended to also like the image. Seeing popular pictures also produced greater activation in the reward centers of the brain.

 
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Verizon's Metamorphosis: Can You See Me As A Tech Giant Now?  

Verizon has transformed from a child of the Bell monopoly to parent of tech legends AOL and Yahoo. It wants to play with Google and Facebook — but don't expect a full transformation just yet.

 
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Bridging the generation gap  
A farmer can remember what has happened last year and the year before, and can prepare accordingly. But what about plants? How can they pass on their experience to their offspring?  
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Italian MP threatens parents forcing veggie diets on kids with jail  

Populist politician decries 'ideological excesses'

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Genius crow's tool-bending behaviour may be natural to its kind  
Betty the crow astounded scientists with its ability to bend a piece of garden wire into a neat hook back in 2002. Now it looks like wild crows do it all the time  
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Lake Tanganyika fisheries declining from global warming  

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The decrease in fishery productivity in Lake Tanganyika since the 1950s is a consequence of global warming rather than just overfishing, according to a new report from an international team of researchers. The team found that during the 1800s, the lake became warmer at the same time the abundance of fish began to decline. However, large-scale commercial fishing did not begin on Lake Tanganyika until the 1950s. The researchers say the new findings help illuminate why the lake's fisheries are foundering.

Image credit: Saskia Marijnissen, UNDP

 
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r0B0t: Chatbot offers free legal aid to the homeless  

A Stanford undergrad's AI-based chatbot has already helped us with our parking tickets and various legal issues, but now his DoNotPay bot is taking on an even bigger, trickier issue. 

After receiving acclaim for the bot, which challenged over 160,000 tickets, Joshua Browder taught the program how to help homeless people in the UK claim their right to public housing. 

The user simply asks for help, and the bot will ask them a series of questions to determine how best to help them. Usually this will involve crafting a claim letter, which the bot fills in with the information that's been provided. In the end, people can save hundreds of dollars in legal advising fees when they need that money the most.  Read more...

More about United Kingdom, Homelessness, Legal, Robot, and Tech  
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The Journey Towards Valuing Nature  


This article has been submitted as part of the Natural Capital Coalition's series of blogs on natural capital by Nick Blyth, Policy & Practice Lead at the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA)

At the launch of the Natural Capital Protocol last Month - no one could fail to be struck by how far the movement to 'value nature' has come, the depth of work, and the impressive range of collaborations between academics, NGOs, consultancies, businesses and yes still (just about) Government.

The Natural Capital Protocol is without doubt seminal - but can it be game-changing? That is a question, and also a challenge, to all of us who are passionate about, or work in, the sustainability space.

After the launch I revisited some early soundings from IEMA members - environment and sustainability professionals - on the critical barriers they were facing on this agenda back in 2012. I wanted to discuss with those professionals the progress they were making, and how the new Protocol might help with their organisation's change pathways.

Central to those 40 or so professionals back in 2012, was a recognition that the natural environment will nearly always (appear) to offer absolutely no immediate business value, (although a closer inspection will almost always refute this of course). In contrast, carbon for instance, was really hitting the bottom line in a visible and tangible way. This all consolidated into a strongly held view on the imperative for a fiscal or a working value (shadow price) on the natural environment - seen as essential in order to influence decision making.

So where are we now? Clearly the Natural Capital Protocol could never compete with the relative simplicity of carbon valuation, and instead a menu of valuation approaches are introduced and signposted. The Protocol simply reflects the complexity of the reality.

Valuing nature in business is an advanced test for sustainability leaders - with some colleagues referencing it as the 'bake off final'. Unlike Carbon or energy management, there is rarely ever any single driver that will carry this through into decision making. A blended approach is often required, drawing together and mixing the ingredients.

At the same time, many of us also have a better and more refined understanding of decision making itself. In uncertain times, how many organisations can muster truly reliable data on their future economic outlook without recognising their impacts and dependencies on natural capital?

The Natural Capital Protocol works a bit like a 'Haynes manual' in providing practical pathways to valuation, but its primary function is a companion to understanding and influencing decision making - is anyone surprised it's large!

So what of those other challenges, barriers and opportunities identified back in 2012?

Barriers included real problems with communicating, with terms and language, and also, in the early days, just being taken seriously. The culture of organisations, their decision making, short term thinking and real inertia with business models being 'locked in' (or as someone put it locked down). On these fronts the Protocol and the wider natural capital community of practice is making real progress, providing exemplars and pathways to best practice.

On the opportunities, central to discussion has been the importance of sustainable procurement and supply chain contracting. Real potential exists in adding value within bids, project and service delivery for clients and also in wider brand and reputation building. Also important is the interaction with wider tools, standards and management systems such as the revised ISO14001. Integrating and mainstreaming (as some put it piggy backing and Trojan horsing) is central to making progress. The skill set here is squarely in that space of finding the business relevance and making a start.

Reflecting and discussing with professionals draws you back to a slightly painful realisation - none of this is easy....and nor should it be.

A key challenge for professionals now is simply to understand the landscape of support and the range of pathways that exist. The opportunity though is to plan, innovate, collaborate and to pick the tools and approach for your situation. Some will perhaps start with the Circular Economy and may progress through to valuing nature. However we proceed, we all can see the Natural Capital Protocol as a stepping stone on the journey, and a rather big one that we all need to cross.

Disclaimer: Articles in this series are submitted by people who work in organizations who are part of the Natural Capital Coalition, or people who are involved in the natural capital space more generally, the views expressed here do not necessarily represent the views of The Natural Capital Coalition, other Coalition organizations, or the organization that employs the author.

Follow Nick on Twitter: @nblythiema
Follow IEMA on Twitter: @iemanet

Nick Blyth is policy and practice lead on climate change and natural environment at the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA) and is a full member of the institute. He has worked in senior and management roles in local government, consultancy and for the Woodland Trust.

On 13th July 2016, The Natural Capital Coalition launched a standardized framework for business to identify, measure and value their impacts and dependencies on natural capital. This ' Natural Capital Protocol' has been developed through a unique collaborative process; a World Business Council for Sustainable Development consortium led on the technical development and an IUCN consortium led on business engagement and piloting. The Protocol is supported by practically focused 'Sector Guides' on Apparel and Food & Beverage produced by Trucost on behalf of Coalition.

Keep up to date with the Natural Capital Coalition on Twitter: @NatCapCoalition


Keep up to date with our series on natural capital here.

www.naturalcapitalcoalition.org

-- 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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Snow/ice temperatures in the Arctic  

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Julienne Stroeve of the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and her research team stand near a marker (pyramid-shaped structure) used by aircraft to stay on course for the researchers' transect measurements. Stroeve's team measured temperatures and other variables at the snow/ice interface in Elson Lagoon in Barrow, Alaska. Field data collected by Stroeve's team was used to help validate models that predict the potential response of arctic ecosystems to environmental changes, and to validate satellite measurements and help identify variables that can be reliably retrieved from satellites. Because detailed field sampling of ice and snow conditions can only be conducted over limited distances, Stroeve's team also uses aircraft observations to characterize snow and ice conditions in arctic environments.

Image credit: Don Perovich, CRREL, Hanover, N.H.

 
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Lava by Deepak Verma  

Lava by Deepak Verma

Deepak Verma: Photos

 
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Untitled by امجد 3bdalla

امجد 3bdalla: Photos

 
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Many more species at risk from Southeast Asia tree plantations, study finds  
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Deer evolution: Ancient DNA reveals novel relationships  
Researchers have sequenced mitochondrial DNA from museum specimens of rare species of deer. Analysis of partial nucleotide sequences has enabled the team to refine our picture of the evolutionary history of cervids.  
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The six steps to extinction  
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Hi-tech test to find elusive sawfish  
Scientists can now reliably predict which bodies of water contain the endangered and elusive sawfish species -- by conducting a simple test.  
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Cardinals may be shielding Atlanta residents from West Nile virus, study finds  
A bird species that does a poor job spreading West Nile virus but is particularly likely to get mosquito bites may explain why human infections with the disease are relatively uncommon in Atlanta, Georgia -- despite evidence of high rates of virus circulating in the local bird population, according to a new study.  
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Setting Sun  

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London, England

 
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20160703-IMG_9854.jpg  

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Big Ben inside the circle of the London Eye  

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Shard sunset  

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Sunset and the city  

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5,000 robots to build 3D map of the universe  

Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument hoped to shed light on all that darkness out there

Five thousand robots will get busy creating a 3D map of millions of galaxies in 2019.…

 
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No Silver Bullet Will Save the African Lion  

It has been just over a year since the senseless killing of Cecil the Lion ignited a worldwide firestorm of outrage over trophy hunting. The tragic event spurred conversation and debate in many public spheres and became one of the most widespread conservation stories in history. It was a defining moment for not only the scientific and conservation communities, but for people from all walks of life.

The public uproar over Cecil's death brought much-needed attention to the plight of the African lion. As a result, several countries blocked or tightened restrictions on the import of animal trophies and a handful of major airlines banned their transport. In a significant step forward, lions were officially listed under the protection of the U.S. Endangered Species Act in December of 2015.

While the increased focus on lions is encouraging, the fact remains that the bigger picture of lion conservation is often misunderstood. Trophy hunting—while an important part of that picture—causes a relatively small number of lion deaths each year. If this iconic species is to continue roaming freely across Africa, other critical concerns must be urgently brought to the forefront of the global conversation with the same intensity. On this World Lion Day, it is time for us to raise the flag for all of the threats facing lions today. By doing so, we can take the next essential steps toward saving this vital species—without which the wilds of Africa will be forever altered.

Recent estimates report that lion populations in Africa have plummeted to between 32,000 and 20,000 individuals, a 43 percent decline over the past two decades and a nearly 90 percent decline over the last century. Meanwhile, Africa's human population is growing rapidly and is expected to more than triple by the year 2100. As the wilderness collides with growing human settlements, critical wildlife habitats are experiencing unprecedented fragmentation and degradation. In addition to human encroachment, vital rangelands are disappearing due to increased grazing pressure, water scarcity as a result of climate change, unregulated land conversion, poor farming practices, and deforestation. This loss of habitat not only represents a big problem for lions, but also for their prey species, many of whose numbers are also in a rapid freefall.

As their prey numbers decline and human settlements grow closer, lions are increasingly turning to the livestock of local pastoralists for an easy meal. The loss of a cow is viewed as a personal attack, and people often retaliate against lions by shooting, spearing, or poisoning them. This type of human-wildlife conflict is currently one of the leading causes of lion mortality in Africa, but we aren't seeing the subject make many headlines.

In addition, more and more lions and their prey are becoming victims of the poacher's snare, destined for the bush meat trade or left undetected to die agonizing and needless deaths. The unsustainable bush meat trade is emptying the forests and savannas of animals, thereby limiting future opportunities for surrounding communities to benefit from their wildlife. Another incentive for poachers appears to be a burgeoning demand for lion bones, skins, and other body parts. We must devote our collective attention to understanding and stopping this emerging threat before there is another elephant in the room, sadly literally.

The above scenarios appear to paint a bleak picture for the future of lions in Africa. How do we then move forward with hope for this species? It is clear that there is no silver bullet. When we step away from our own priorities and emphases, all aspects of lion conservation become essential and must be nuanced to the ecological and cultural context where individuals and organizations are working.

For the African People & Wildlife Fund, this context means working in close partnership with rural communities who live alongside one of the most endangered lion populations in all of Tanzania. Together, we are working to protect lions and the vast landscapes they depend on for their survival. Through an ongoing and open dialogue with community members, we collectively determine what issues are most critical to their livelihoods and then work to ensure that their concerns are addressed.

One of the main problems they seek to solve is that of human-wildlife conflict. Among the five programmatic areas where we work in Northern Tanzania, we see nuances in the situation on the ground. For example, some communities experience higher predation levels at the boma—or homestead—while others see higher levels at pasture. For this reason, our engagement and solutions have to be specifically tied to the on-the-ground context and must be able to evolve according to community feedback.

In Tanzania, as with many other places, we see all threats to lion conservation being expressed, albeit with different intensities in different places. Accordingly, there is a pressing need for strategically coordinated efforts to strengthen protected area networks, reduce human-wildlife conflict, restore habitats, increase prey species populations, regulate trophy hunting, and combat the lion bone and bush meat trades in lion territories in a manner that is proportionate to the level at which these threats are expressed. To save this species, we must prioritize the lion as we define and promote our organizational objectives whenever possible.

A year ago, Cecil's untimely death taught us that the world cares about what happens to lions. It showed us that the global public has a powerful voice when it comes to protecting the future of a species in peril. We must now tap into that power in order to galvanize an even larger discussion that includes the full picture of lion conservation. And, it is critical that we not only emphasize the problems facing lions, but also the solutions on the ground that are helping to save them. Such comprehensive dialogues are imperative not only for the future of lions but for other endangered species in Africa and around the world.

To learn more about the African People & Wildlife Fund's community-driven conservation initiatives, please click here.

Dr. Laly Lichtenfeld is the co-founder and executive director of the African People & Wildlife Fund. She is also a grantee of the National Geographic Big Cats Initiative.

 
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World Lion Day: What Would You Do to Protect Lions?  
 
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The Artist Behind Kenya's Viral Photography  
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NASA test foiled by rocket shaking power cord loose from camera  

Snapper built to take you inside a rocket plume eventually produced stunning images

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Infrared Saturn Clouds  
This false-color view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows clouds in Saturn's northern hemisphere. The view was made using images taken by Cassini's wide-angle camera on July 20, 2016, using a combination of spectral filters sensitive to infrared light at 750, 727 and 619 nanometers.  
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r0B0t: Roomba 980 review: Living in the future with a robot vacuum cleaner - International Business Times UK  

International Business Times UK

Roomba 980 review: Living in the future with a robot vacuum cleaner International Business Times UK Having a robotic vacuum cleaner buzzing around while you get on with something else feels a lot like living in the future. Of all the technology we have smartphones, tablets, Wi-Fi, electric cars a cleaning robot is the one which will make you ... iRobot's Roomba 960 is Their Cheaper Wi-Fi Connected Robot VacuumChip Chick all 3 news articles »

 
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The Chemistry Of Life And Sustainability: A Call For Care, Wisdom, Gratitude, And Awe  
When I was a child of seven, growing up in a home of thoughtful religious skeptics who, while nominally Baptist-Methodist, were more accurately somewhere on the spectrum between agnostic and atheist, my grandfather's passing triggered me to become alarmed - actually, downright terrified - at the prospect that death was inevitable for me, and for everyone I knew or did not know, and that if I wanted to live a life of meaning and purpose, something that would outlast my ephemeral form, I'd better get a move on.

The early awareness of one's own mortality, and the overwhelming fear and sadness that accompanies that, must be the most powerful motivating force on the planet. Even as a very young person, I questioned constantly why nature or God could have conceived of such a flawed plan for life - to create an experience so sweet, painful, and exquisite, and then take it away, often brutally, in one final act of undeserved violence, followed by unending nothingness. It seemed so unfair, so wrong, so tragic.
It wasn't until I was 24, sitting in my stark home office in Sacramento, on another late night in my role as a crusading environmentalist seeking to save humanity from self-annihilation - if I couldn't live on, then at least my species could - that I had an experience that, for me, was my epiphany, and my religious conversion. I came to feel, see, and experience clearly that my life was more of a chapter than a book; a singular and limited expression of an underlying whole life that stretched back and forward as far as I could possibly conceive, and more. I became smaller at that moment, at least in self-concept, but my long-time sense of personal power and potential, seared into me by my sense of mortality, remained. I became as committed as ever to protecting and extending the experience of life, but now more as its agent, rather than as a single individual with a defined beginning and end.

While, like Woody Allen, I had worried neurotically at the process of entropy that seemed to upend my efforts daily, and at a larger level guarantee the ultimate futility of life in any form anywhere, I began to notice a parallel process that was more creative rather than destructive: synergy, the emergence of new qualities as matter takes ever more complex living forms.

Every science reveals the power of synergy. As matter moves through dynamics of physics, chemistry, biology, physiology, psychology, and the political, social, religious, and moral sciences, driven by process that extend from the forces at work in stars to the cultural creations of civilization, we see at every level the emergence of new qualities that help create, sustain, and deepen the qualities of life and expand our potential experience of it.

Seared together in stars that are themselves the consequence of these processes, particles join to form atoms, and matter emerges - the 118 elements of the periodic table, each with unique qualities. Atoms join to form molecules, in millions of potential forms, each with qualities that appear seemingly out of nowhere, but reflect an underlying potential. Molecules join to form cells, and enable life, fungal and plant life that is able to replicate, adapt, and evolve into myriad forms, each again distinctive in the qualities that emerge. Simple cells join together to unleash conscious life - thought and self-awareness, at which point matter gains the capacity to look back on itself and assume an individual identity. Individuals, born to one another, join together to form communities - families, tribes, villages, states, nations, and even whole worlds, at each level inventing new forms of ever more complex social organization, each of which unveils intellectual, technical, and moral insights that lead us toward higher forms of enlightenment, and new understandings of our interconnectedness. Life is a creative force that somehow, against all odds, persists in tunneling its way from its latent forms deep within and between super-microscopic subatomic particles, through atomic, chemical, biological, and thoughtful systems, all the way to fuller expression in each of us as living beings, both individual and connected. In the vast expanse of the universe, life seems to be rare in material terms, yet so persistent in the face of unending time as to be practically inevitable. And we are still evolving. Who knows what may be next?

Chemistry is the science where this synergy is perhaps most instantly and obviously evident. Join together two elements with the capacity to bond, and they complete a puzzle, forming a union from which emerge whole new qualities, new forms of power, unlike any in the component parts. From the combination of oxygen and hydrogen to create water, to the hydrocarbons and carbohydrates that fuel our vehicles and us, this capacity to create something that is more and different than what was consumed is the foundation of sustainability. It is the essential counterforce to entropy, the expenditure of energy, which enables life to grow richer even in the face of material constraints.

Chemistry is a powerful capacity. The Hittites discovered it around 1200 BC, beginning the Iron Age, and ever since we have explored its potential while never fully comprehending its full purpose and power. The benefits of chemistry have been broad and vast. The costs, so far, have been mostly local and only occasionally catastrophic, though their impact is now planetary, and we must be careful. We know now that we need to approach chemistry with respect, understanding that the range of capacities available to us is as close to infinite as we need, but that our discovery of them must be guided by both curiosity and caution, with awareness of both the direct and indirect consequences of our exploration. It is our nature and perhaps destiny to discover more of the capacities of chemistry, but it is both a practical and a moral imperative that we do so with care, wisdom, gratitude, and awe.

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Microsoft somehow made a chat bot worse than ‘Tay'  

Remember Tay? She was the teen chat bot that went from girl next door, to aspiring klansman in all of 24 hours. Microsoft's new bot, Murphy Bot, is somehow worse. For all Tay's flaws, she started off rather realistic sounding and semi-capable of holding a real conversation. Murphy Bot, on the other hand, took a different direction. Instead of trying to maintain a conversation, Murphy wants to show you images. He's the bot equivalent of your friend that just can't stop showing you baby photos. Murphy, however, only shows photos of situations based on a “what if” question. For example, a…

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https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/8-14-august-2016/dinner-twits-gloriously-gruesome-theatrical-dining-experience/  
Dinner at the Twits: a gloriously gruesome theatrical dining experience  

Chances are we've all experienced the questionable culinary decisions people make when having guests round for dinner, but how many of us can actually say that we've been to “the worst dinner party in the world”?

Bompas & Parr are attempting to lay claim to this prestigious title with their latest project an immersive theatre-cum-dining experience based on one of Roald Dahl's most famous tales, The Twits.

Produced in collaboration with Les Enfants Terribles, ebp and Creature of London, Dinner at the Twits is centred around a banquet held by Mr and Mrs Twit at their horrid home.

As well as munching on a slice of bird pie or fishing the glass eye from their cocktail, people will also be able to explore the Twits' Ghastly Garden and Windowless House, set in the underground chamber of The Vaults in Waterloo, London.

We speak to set designer, Sam Wyer, to find out all of the deliciously disgusting details.

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Design Week: Why did you and the producers decide to move the story on from Roald Dahl's original work?

Sam Wyer: One of the problems of developing The Twits as a performance is that the book's success lies in its focus on these spiteful vignettes between Mr and Mrs Twit. They are wonderfully delicious, but as a performance they don't further a linear story.

The major advantage of what we're doing as an immersive performance, is that we can reference these in my sets, and give the whole show an exploratory nature. With the added sensory elements of food and drink, we can enhance and continue to thicken the audience experience of the story during intervals in performance.

DW: Why did you decide to use The Vaults as the venue?

SW: One of the most brilliant parts of working at a space like The Vaults, which I've done several times before with Les Enfants Terribles, is the architectural features and textures all around you.

The darkness and dinginess of the space is like being locked in a dungeon. This gives me lots of opportunity to play with colour and darkness, which adds to that dingy world of the Twits.

DW: What are Mr and Mrs Twit's role within the production?

SW: Mr and Mrs Twit are your hosts, somewhat suspiciously renewing their wedding vows. As well as performing scenes, they will approach your table during courses and talk to you as your host might.

This is a great opportunity for me as a designer. Their richness comes through not only in the way they behave, but I can also treat them as walking scenery. You're up close and personal with really lovely, rich, revolting design.

DW: How did you incorporate a sense of occasion into the set design, given that Mr and Mrs Twit are renewing their wedding vows?

SW: I found certain ways to beautify the grottiness and grotesqueness. This could be typified in the garden scene, for instance, where the guests enjoy the entrees and cocktails.

Mr and Mrs Twit's brutalist, incredibly unfriendly garden full of thistles and nettles will also be decked in barbed wire (to keep all the nosey nasty kiddies out).

But to make it a feature that lifts people's experience, and connects it to those fantastical experiences at decadent parties, I'm incorporating fairy lights into the barbed wire, to emphasise the duality of beauty and horridness.

DW: How does Dinner at the Twits differ from some of your previous collaborations with Les Enfants Terribles, such as Alice's Adventures Underground?

SW: Whilst we have been able to incorporate lots of skills and lessons gained from immersive theatre that we have created before, the main difference with this production is the integration of food.

That's especially pertinent when the audience are given the opportunity to explore their environment and discover the food, such as the edible wormery, scraping through the compost heap to discover beautiful eggs to eat, and the various tonics and potions that Mr and Mrs Twit have set aside.

One of the challenges is differentiating the edible items from the inedible items and giving our audience enough discovery, without them ending up chewing the scenery.

DW: What do you want people to take away from the production?

SW: The writers, Oliver Lansley and Antony Spargo, and director, Emma Earle have broken down the action to allow people to enjoy their food without having to focus on large swathes of performance. This gives the kind of intervals that allow people to converse, laugh and chat as you might do if you were reading the book with somebody.

Guests are encouraged to interact with the spaces, such as the Ghastly Garden, to find all of the delicious treats, bringing to life one of Dahl's most repulsive stories. We want people to feel like they have stepped into the story from their childhood imaginings where they can meet the characters and visit the places.

For me, the chance to tell this story for adults doesn't change the approach greatly, as Dahl writes for all ages, but the chance to relish a little more in the darker imagery from the book is wonderful. Expect another sticky end!

Dinner at the Twits will run at The Vaults in Waterloo from 4 September to 30 October. Visit twitsdinner.com for more details.

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https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/8-14-august-2016/brand-design-consultancy-wpa-pinfold-redesigned-harveys-lewes-branding-reach-fresh-generation-drinkers-new-look-brewery-officially-unveiled/  
WPA Pinfold overhauls Harvey's Brewery branding  

WPA Pinfold, has redesigned Harvey's of Lewes branding to “reach a fresh generation of drinkers” by introducing a new identity and family of illustrations.

As the oldest independent brewery in Sussex, Harvey's worked with WPA Pinfold to reposition the brewery “for future generations, ensuring a legacy for the family business while future proofing the brand,” according to Myles Pinfold, WPA Pinfold's strategic brand director.

Pale blue and copper wordmark

The identity design includes a new wordmark, sees a turquoise and copper colour palette introduced alongside a new brewery illustration.

“We felt that WPA Pinfold's in-depth knowledge of the brewing industry was key in ensuring our brand was in safe hands,” says Bob Trimm, Harvey's sales and marketing manager.

“The designers respected our heritage while enabling us to move forward and reach a fresh generation of drinkers.”

Turquoise has been used as the main colourway, harking back to the company's heritage on the Sussex coast, while the use of white is inspired by the local limestone cliffs.

“We wunt be druv”

An image of the brewery building a landmark in Lewes also features in the logo, while its seasonal range has been captured in a series of illustrations by local artist Malcolm Trollope-Davis.

A new strapline will also be introduced; “We wunt be druv”. Used locally, it's a Sussex dialect phrase meaning, “we will not be driven”.

“It's a saying that reflects the independence, spirit and pride that's always been at the heart of the county and we feel it fits with the Harvey's ethos,” says Trimm.

The rebrand includes plans to expand the brewery's sales, outside the historically key 100km radius of the brewery.

The post WPA Pinfold overhauls Harvey's Brewery branding appeared first on Design Week.

 
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https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/8-14-august-2016/subway-reveals-minimalist-new-logo-symbol/  
Subway reveals minimalist new logo and symbol  

Fast-food restaurant chain, Subway, has unveiled a new logo and symbol, premiering it during several Olympics TV spots.

The logo retains the core colours long associated with the brand green and yellow but it has opted to swap out italics in favour of a more minimalist typeface.

Meanwhile, the new symbol featuring one yellow and one green arrow is curved to form a large, graphic “S” shape.

Roll out early 2017

Suzanne Greco, president and chief executive of Subway, says: “The Subway brand is recognised throughout the world, and this new look reinforces our commitment to staying fresh and forward-thinking with a design that is clear and confident without losing sight of our heritage.”

The new identity is expected to roll out across all Subway restaurants, communications, and digital experiences worldwide in early 2017.

“This was a cross-functional project led by our creative team, working with a variety of design partners. Our initial work began last fall and we went through several iterations over the past year to get the logo and symbol just right,” says Subway.

The restaurant chain says it will confirm who else has worked on the design of the new logo when it rolls out next year.

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http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fgo.theregister.com%2Ffeed%2Fwww.theregister.co.uk%2F2016%2F08%2F10%2F1967_weather_forecast_stopped_nuclear_war%2F&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8  
Revealed: How a weather forecast in 1967 stopped nuclear war  

Solar storm that nearly turned the world hot

For the first time, retired US Air Force officers have published [PDF] an account of an incident on May 23, 1967 when a solar storm nearly fooled American high command into thinking that a Soviet nuclear attack was on the way.…

 
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http://heptagram.co/post/148715473377  
julienpomerleau: WILL BOONE  

julienpomerleau:

WILL BOONE

 
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http://heptagram.co/post/148710679680  
kindofluxe: contemporary-art-blog: Lee Ufan xx  

kindofluxe:

contemporary-art-blog:

Lee Ufan

xx

 
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https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2016/aug/09/is-rio-olympic-architecture-a-success  
On your marks: is Rio's Olympic architecture a success or failure?  

After the ‘worst ever' preparations, how are the park, arena and athletes' village holding up? And are the designs for the mascots, torch and kits medal-worthy?

The collapsed sailing ramp has been hauled out of the water, a Russian diplomat has heroically killed a carjacker (or maybe not), and 450,000 condoms await action in the leaky athletes village. Beset by construction problems and delays and with preparations decreed the “worst ever” by the International Olympic Committee, how is the architecture and design of the XXXI Olympiad shaping up so far?

Related: Rio Olympics: who are the real winners and losers?

Related: London's Olympic legacy: a suburb on steroids, a cacophony of luxury stumps

Continue reading...  
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http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/08/09/buying-a-smart-lock-might-be-a-dumb-investment/  
Buying a smart lock might be a dumb investment  

We've known for some time that the Internet of Things (IOT) was basically a connected dumpster fire. Time and time again, these connected devices have proven that, while convenient, they aren't necessarily safe. In fact, many manufacturers have a rather apathetic view on security, which leads to a lack of trust in connected products. Smart door locks are no exception. Two different presentations at hacker conference DEF CON this year make it clear there's a long way to go before the convenience of a smart lock properly aligns with user safety. Anthony Rose and Ben Ramsey, from Merculite Security, proved that…

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https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/8-14-august-2016/london-transport-museum-run-series-events-commemorating-frank-pick/  
London Transport Museum to run series of events commemorating Frank Pick  

The London Transport Museum is highlighting the achievements of Frank Pick in a series of talks and events, to coincide with the 75th anniversary of his death.

Pick who was the managing director of London Transport during the early 20th Century is widely considered responsible for transforming London's transport network into a design-led organisation.

Johnston Typeface, art deco stations and the roundel

The series of events take place on various dates from September to November. They include a discussion with transport historian, writer and research fellow, Oliver Green about Pick's design vision for London transport including the sans serif Johnston Typeface, Charles Holden's art deco stations and the Tube roundel.

Also on the line-up is a talk from architectural critic and writer, Jonathan Glancey, looking at the last 100 hundred years of Piccadilly Circus, which Pick redeveloped during the 1920s.

In addition, artists Ben Langlands and Nikki Bell will discuss Pick's legacy with author and broadcaster Robert Elms ahead of the unveiling of their memorial artwork Beauty < Mortality which will be permanently installed at Picadilly Circus from November.

Visitors to the Museum Depot in Acton, west London will also be able to learn more about the roundel during its open weekend, A Logo for London, next month.

18-month programme of events

As part of the open weekend, the museum plans to run a mixture of workshops, arts and crafts sessions, talks and tours exploring the history and inspiration behind the logo.

The Frank Pick programme is part of Transport for London and London Transport Museum's 18-month programme of events, exhibitions and competitions highlighting the role of design in London's transport network, which runs until December.

For more information visit ltmuseum.co.uk

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http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2016/08/09/a-robot-tattooist-could-make-you-think-twice-about-getting-inked/  
A robot tattooist could make you think twice about getting inked  

In further proof that robots are here to steal our jobs, a new industrial robot could soon be tattooing you. On one hand, you don't have to undergo hours of small talk about what that Nyan Cat on your inner thigh really means to you on an existential level. On the flip side, it's a fucking robot brandishing a sharp object and stabbing you repeatedly. A duo of French designers, Pierre Emm and Johan da Silveira, and an Autodesk engineer, David Thomasson, teamed up to build the robot artist after the success of a previous creation, Tatoue — a 3D printed…

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https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/8-14-august-2016/frog-aspect-imaging-create-human-centered-design-process-mri-systems/  
Frog helps design “patient-friendly” MRI scanners  

Product designers Frog and Aspect Imaging, a life-science company, have designed “patient-friendly” MRI scanners.

The new systems include WristView, a dedicated hand and wrist MRI system, and Embrace Neonatal System, a newborn baby scanner.

“The exciting thing about the collaboration with Aspect Imaging has been the possibility to completely reinvent a product category from the ground up, around the needs of the end-user,” says Thomas Sutton, executive creative director at Frog.

Less expensive than conventional systems

WristView is designed to be compact and ensures a stress-free patient experience that costs less than conventional systems, according to Frog and Aspect Imaging.

While existing MRI scanners cover the whole body, the new design is a “non-claustrophobic” alternative, according to Frog, as just the arm is encased.

The Embrace Neonatal System baby scanner preps and scans in less than an hour, and as it is designed to remain within the neonatal hospital, continuous care can be provided during the scan as required.

Lab space

“We spent one day building the system on the fly with foam, cardboard, and a lot of hot-glue, acting out the workflow using the models and iterating on what we learned,” says James Luther, creative director at Frog.

After the initial design phase, the Frog team worked in a “lab space” that replicated “a NICU where they constantly had access to full-scale models and functional products including incubators and silicone neonates.”

Experts including nurses, specialists and radiologists were all involved throughout the design process, performing research in clinical settings to map workflow and identify ways to optimise the units for those specific environments.

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http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/08/09/a-ring-that-lets-you-feel-your-partners-heartbeat-is-trolling-at-level-10/  
A ring that lets you feel your partner's heartbeat is trolling at level 10  

Created by The Touch, ‘HB' rings use an app, Bluetooth and your phone's mobile internet to help you feel more connected to your partner. Once connected, you're able to feel your loved one's heartbeat in real time through your ring. Your partner can feel yours as well. There's utility here. For long-distance relationships, it could help you feel closer and more connected. For those in the type of relationship that makes people around them sick, well, you can make them even sicker by knowing your partner is with you while they're downstairs making you coffee. It's the little things… that make…

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http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/08/08/a-tesla-saved-its-owners-life-by-using-autopilot-to-get-him-to-the-hospital/  
A Tesla saved its owners life by using autopilot to get him to the hospital  

While autopilot isn't always used for its intended purpose, or even used correctly for that matter, it's undeniable that the feature has utility. Joshua Neally probably recognizes this more than most. After the 37-year-old Neally started suffering from piercing pain in his stomach and chest, he decided to engage his Tesla Model X's autopilot function to get him to the nearest hospital — some 20 miles away. He told Slate, the only time he manually steered the car was in the parking lot. Once parked, he got himself inside and checked into the hospital where doctors found a potentially fatal…

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http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/08/08/new-facial-recognition-algorithm-is-so-smart-it-doesnt-need-to-see-your-face/  
New facial recognition algorithm is so smart it doesn't need to see your face  

Facial recognition already posed serious problems for privacy advocates. Used by everyone from law enforcement to churches, the privacy concerns with facial recognition are very real, and they're about to get a lot worse. The ability to identify anyone just by analyzing an image of their face creates a severe imbalance of power from the common citizen to the people in charge. The ability to identify those whose faces are blurred or otherwise obstructed kills that balance entirely. Yet that's exactly what algorithms like the ‘Faceless Recognition System' (FRS) are aiming to do. FRS was a creation by researchers at the…

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http://99u.com/articles/54278/7-creative-insights-to-give-your-career-a-boost-this-very-second/  
7 Creative Insights To Give Your Career a Boost This Very Second  

There's gobs of merit in chiseling away at one of your bad habits for months in order to make a long-term improvement to some aspect of your career. In fact, we champion that approach here all the time. However, we're also going to make the alternative case that there is nothing wrong with a quick fix that you can implement right now and will provide you with immediate positive results. So the 99U staff and contributors have rounded up seven of our top productivity tips to give you a head start on your next work move. 

1. Be No. 1 (into the Office)  

Getting creative work done when it's peaceful and quiet? Easy. Getting up early every day? Not so easy. A humble suggestion: Start small. Break free from the train of people shuffling into the office starting at 9 a.m. by being the first person into work just once a week. You know, the kind of early arrival where you are the one turning on the lights. The easiest way to start is to aim for Fridays. This way you've already ticked off your most import tasks by the time your body is tapped out in mid-afternoon and everyone in the office is buzzing about their weekend plans. (And if we're being honest, it's way too easy to push late Friday afternoon work to Monday.)

Let's be clear, still work your normal amount of hours. Just approach them differently. If you tell yourself that you can leave work by 4 p.m. on Friday if you complete your to-do list, chances are good you'll be done by 3:59! An added bonus? Doing something hard first thing in the morning just plain feels good. Like the endorphin rush from hitting the gym in the morning, you will experience a boost in spirits.

Make it fun too — treat yourself to breakfast and a fancy coffee on the way in. (Work at home? Then creating something by 8 a.m. is your goal.) But for God's sake don't send an unnecessary email like, “Hey, Ron, I will be in the conference room if anyone is looking for me” time stamped at 7:45 a.m. when absolutely no one is looking for you. This isn't a contest: It's about you feeling good for your extra effort and using your time wisely. 

2. Replace Your To-Do List 

Feeling overwhelmed has many forms, but we bet that most times when you feel this panicked sensation it's not about the number of things you have to do, but your ability to sort out the priority and timing of each task. Here's why: A to-do list typically only has one “axis”: the number of items you wish to complete. This is a step forward, but also severely anxiety-inducing. Avoid those times you feel like you're drowning in documents by replacing your to do-list with a production calendar. It works like this: Brain dump every possible task you have in your head, both big and small, both long term and short term in a spreadsheet. Empty your mind. This may take a few sittings (plane rides are great for this).

Then, place these tasks in buckets based on time. Which tasks need to be done this week? This month? This quarter? Drag each row into the month you need to accomplish the task. Once you have a calendar of tasks make a promise to yourself: Only worry about the tasks of the current month. This way you place a boundary on what to worry about, which should, hopefully, make it much easier to keep a clear head.

3. Help Me Help You Help Them

Those that work in a large company know that the bigger the organization, the more meetings you'll have to tackle. Partially, that's understandable. To get a lot of people moving in the same direction, communication is required. Standard stuff. But when you add shared calendars into the mix, things get messy.

In many places, it's culturally acceptable to place a meeting on your calendar without checking first. Or, its sinister cousin, emailing you and suggesting you “get together to chat.” Or, yes, “pick your brain.” If this sounds like your day, we suggest a simple “pushback” email. Each time anyone adds a context-less meeting to your calendar, deny the request and ask, “Happy to offer insight, but did you have anything specific you were facing or that we can help with? It would help me contextualize how I can be most useful.”

Sometimes you get a thoughtful response and then by all means, take the meeting. But sometimes the person won't have specifics, in which case you can respectfully say, “I'm sorry I don't see how I can help, but please let me know if you think of anything specific.” This is a tactic to be deployed judiciously and with care, of course. But if you don't protect your calendar, who will?

4. Run That Back 

There's a sub-genre of productivity enthusiasts that like to obsess over the best music to listen to maximize creativity. Streaming services like Spotify have entire playlists designed to encourage deep thought. But there's a problem with new albums and playlists: They're…. new. Depending on how you listen to music, a new artist and new lyrics have your brain doing some low-level background processes. Who sings this? What are they trying to say? Do I like this? Those are mental cycles better spent on whatever you're working on. So while most creativity comes from novelty, here's an idea: Only listen to stuff you know very well.

The key here is to be shameless, that emo-rock album from high school fits the bill just fine. Shane Snow, an author who has somehow managed to write several books while running his own business, takes this a step further: He just listens to the same song over and over again. Sounds crazy, but if his output while helping to run a 100-plus company is any measure, it's worth trying.    

5. Your New Routine Is Your Old One 

Tell me if this sounds familiar: You want to start a new routine or habit. To “prepare” yourself, you'll chop three hours out of your day and lock yourself in a room in hopes of being your best productive self. Or you'll binge read everything you can on your hoped-for new self. Resist that temptation. 

Instead of trying to create a new routine, add to your old one. In the morning, preferably. Whether you begin your day with coffee or a jog, take 10 to 15 minutes afterwards and “piggy back” your new habit on one you already have. Do some deep reading, research your side project, or sketch your new design, whatever you had in mind. Adding a small amount of time to your morning habits allows you to accomplish important tasks without significantly disrupting your already rock-solid routine. As a bonus, taking this time first thing every morning helps you feel more accomplished at the start of your day because you've done what truly matters to you first. You don't always need a crazy new routine to be productive and you'll be surprised how much you get done in 600 seconds.    

6. Network in your Network 

Think of your “traditional” networking advice: Attend conferences, meet ups, and school events all as a means of “getting your foot in the door.” However, if you ask anyone you know, chances are their last job didn't come from someone they met at a random function. It came from someone they already knew.

Rather than hoping to get your next big break from someone you don't know, connect with your peers first. Often times, you don't even think to ask your best friend for help getting a job because it can be awkward and uncomfortable. In a way, it shifts the equal balance you both are on, making you a bit more vulnerable. But when thinking of your career and your next steps, being vulnerable can actually help rather than hurt you. Your friends and family can get you that next big break if you ask them. However, this will be difficult if you're vague or lazy in your questioning. People won't know how to help you if you don't know what you're asking for. Take initiative in your career: Ask yourself what is it that you're really looking for. What industry do you want to work in? Who do you want to work for? What client would you like to pick up next?

Then, and only then, start with your friends, family, or people you may have worked for in the past this is your network. Ask this group of people a specific request: “Do you know anybody looking to hire in this area…?” rather than “I need a job!” Networking in your immediate circle can build connections faster, boost your confidence, and jumpstart your career. Take advantage of your people. Besides, you never know who your mom knows.

7. Hey, Thanks

When you adopt a daily gratitude practice into your work life, you increase energy level, lift stress, and cultivate more alertness, determination, and optimism in yourself and those around you, according to research presented by Psychology Today.

Here's how it works: Every day, thank at least one person you work with. That's it. Whether it's someone who reports to you, your manager, a teammate on a project, or someone you connected with at a conference, thank them. It can be an in-person “Thanks for your help on this,” or “I'm so glad you're on this project,” or an emailed “Really appreciate it!” or “You rock my socks.”

It's not just some new age-y advice, it's also practical. Expressing gratitude increases morale for both parties. It also deepens connections within your network. The warmer people feel toward you, the better you'll work well together and the likelier they are to do you a solid when it's needed.

Just make your thank you genuine. Mean it. Think about how you'd thank your parent for his or her wisdom and support over the years, and channel that spirit into this daily expression of gratitude. Set a daily reminder so you don't forget. Thanks for reading. Your time and attention are much appreciated.

 

 
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JR adds habitable moon room to ‘casa amarela', a cultural center in rio's first favela  

on the roof of a cultural, social and educational center, a huge crescent moon sculpture will become a space for artists to work.

The post JR adds habitable moon room to ‘casa amarela', a cultural center in rio's first favela appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

 
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cape town-based photographer kyle weeks documents the dangerous practice of palm wine collecting  

the ancient cultural tradition sees tappers climbing up palms the height of tall buildings to extract the sweet, milky, white sap from the trees' flower stumps.

The post cape town-based photographer kyle weeks documents the dangerous practice of palm wine collecting appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

 
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artist fills the new museum with 3,000 images of people posing with teddy bears  

the exhibition examines the impulse to collect both precious and valueless goods, displaying artist ydessa hendeles' sanctuary of images and artifacts.

The post artist fills the new museum with 3,000 images of people posing with teddy bears appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

 
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https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/aug/09/artist-hormazd-narielwalla-becoming-a-uk-citizen-before-brexit  
Hormazd Narielwalla: becoming a UK citizen before Brexit feels bittersweet  

The artist on how discarded tailoring patterns, a lost garden of his boyhood in India and his new British citizenship inspired a very personal new exhibition

When I was a boy, I used to visit a beautiful community garden in my hometown of Pune, India. I thought of this garden during the EU referendum. I was starting a new art project a series of 12 works destined to span the top floor of the Royal Festival Hall, in London.

The garden, which was a couple of acres, was one of the few traces of British colonial history left in Pune. It housed beautiful rose beds, and was maintained as a cooperative. People from the community visited, socialised, caught up on local gossip and bought roses. It was a splendid treat that everyone was free to enjoy.

A Savile Row director told me they shredded the ​tailoring ​patterns when a customer died

Before the Brexit vote, ​I was certain ​​British people would not succumb to alienating themselves from their neighbours

Related: How a William Hogarth painting predicted Brexit 250 years ago

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xavier portela saturates tokyo's sidewalks, streets and sights in pink  

through the series 'tokyo's glow', the brussels-based photographer aims to recreate the spirited sensation that visitors experience upon arrival to japan's mega metropolis.

The post xavier portela saturates tokyo's sidewalks, streets and sights in pink appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

 
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https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/aug/09/homage-to-george-orwell-bbc-statue-wins-planning-permission  
Homage to George Orwell: BBC statue wins planning permission  

Broadcaster's former employee who left on bad terms will return as a lifesize bronze sculpture outside London headquarters

George Orwell has won planning permission to return as a lifesize bronze statue to the BBC, which he left on bad terms in 1943 snarling that his work there as a talks producer “was wasting my own time and the public money on doing work that produces no result”.

This time he won't cost the public a penny: all the money for the first public statue honouring the author of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm has been raised from private donors, through a trust founded by the late Labour MP Ben Whitaker.

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julienpomerleau: Kids You Go To School With, Julien Pomerleau...  

julienpomerleau:

Kids You Go To School With, Julien Pomerleau (2015)

Oil, acrylic, gesso, spray can.

 
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Photo  


 
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randy cano's melting motion graphics are strangely satisfying and surreal  

the LA-based artist has been sharing short videos on his instagram page that disfigure, distort, melt, mangle, shatter and liquefy both 'human' figures and inanimate, everyday objects.

The post randy cano's melting motion graphics are strangely satisfying and surreal appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

 
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/07/british-museum-south-africa-host-800-year-old-treasure  
South Africa's golden rhino to star in British Museum exhibition  

Figures and objects from Mapungubwe, site of the first kingdom in southern Africa, are part of an exploration of 100,000 years of art

One of Africa's greatest treasures, the 800-year-old golden rhinoceros of Mapungubwe, is to leave the continent for the first time as part of a British Museum exhibition exploring 100,000 years of South African art.

More than 200 exhibits will be displayed at the show, opening in October, but securing loans of the rhino and other extraordinary gold objects is particularly significant.

Related: South Africa has broken the post-colonial narrative. It's a thrilling turning point | Justice Malala

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Wasps stitch up spiders in silk nests where they are eaten alive  
One type of parasitic wasp lays its eggs inside spiders' nests, then felts the silk of the nests to make a secure home for the larvae  
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A Stuntman's Leap of Faith  
 
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Rio de Janeiro inclu  
Rio de Janeiro including Maracanã Stadium illuminated at night, Brazil (© Corey Jenkins/Alamy) 2016-08-09 [www.bing.com/search]  
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AOGS 2016  

NASA's Science Program Support Office posted a photo:

Asia Oceania Geosciences Society
13th Annual Meeting
Beijing, China
July 31 - August 5, 2016

 
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"Solar Armageddon" --Solar Storm at Height of the Cold War Nearly Took U.S. to Brink of Nuclear War  
 
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Human Brain is an Intuitive "Physics Engine"  
 
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Why the Universe Exists --"Evidence Mounts That Neutrinos are the Key"  
 
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Worlds Beyond Pluto --"There's Not Just Planet 9, But Several Planets Beyond"  
 
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/europeanspaceagency/28250294083/  
Comet on 6 August 2016 NavCam  

europeanspaceagency posted a photo:

Two incredible years have passed since ESA's comet-chaser Rosetta arrived at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on 6 August 2014.

During that time Rosetta has mapped the comet's curious shape and given us awe-inspiring views from near and far, spotting changes in its surface features and watching as jets of gas and dust stream out in to space sometimes unexpectedly as sudden outbursts.

The spacecraft has performed daring close flybys and made distant excursions to sample gas, dust and plasma at a range of distances, giving unparalleled insight into the processes that operate at the comet and how it interacts with its environment as it hurtles through space.

In two years, the comet has travelled around 1.5 billion km along its orbit around the Sun, passing through perihelion last August its closest approach to the Sun and putting on a spectacular fireworks display as its activity reached a maximum.

Unlike this time last year, when the comet was so active that Rosetta could only observe it from a safe distance of 200300 km, the activity has since subsided and the spacecraft is now operating at much closer distances, as reflected in this image, captured on 6 August 2016 from 8.5 km. The scale is 0.7 m/pixel and the image measures about 700 m across.

It shows a close-up view of part of the comet's small lobe, encapsulating some of the large depression known as Hatmehit and its steep cliff walls (left), and the contrasting heavily fractured terrain of Wosret (bottom) and Bastet (top). A portion of the horizon is also captured in the distance, at the top right.

Local variations in topography and individual large boulders cast impressive shadows across the scene. For example, the details of the cliff edge at the top left are recorded in the shadows it casts on the floor below.

The area close to the bottom of the image has been the focus of imaging campaigns attempting to find Rosetta's lander Philae, where it is thought to have bounced in November 2014, but has yet to be confirmed.

With Rosetta still flying alongside, the comet is now heading back towards the outer Solar System. As such, power is falling, and Rosetta's thrilling mission will soon conclude in a grand finale: it will make a controlled impact onto the surface of the comet on 30 September.

Credit: ESA/Rosetta/NavCam CC BY-SA IGO 3.0

 
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Nursery web spider (  

Nursery web spider (Pisaurina mira) collected in Kejimkujik National Park, Nova Scotia, Canada, and photographed at the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics (sample ID: BIOUG14847-H09; specimen record: http://www.boldsystems.org/index.php/Public_RecordView?processid=SSKJA375-14; BIN: http://www.boldsystems.org/index.php/Public_BarcodeCluster?clusteruri=BOLD:AAI2721)

 
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La Flor de La Vida…  
La Flor de La Vida… la estructura de todo lo creado.  
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r0B0t: Are crows intelligent? Scientists discover corvids can't solve tricky problems as well as first thought - Daily Mail  

Daily Mail

Are crows intelligent? Scientists discover corvids can't solve tricky problems as well as first thought Daily Mail Betty the crow wowed the world when she deftly bent a straight piece of garden wire into a neat hook to retrieve a bucket full of food. But experts may have to re-write textbooks on animal intelligence, because crows may not be as brilliant as we ... Was Betty the crow a genius—or a robot?Science Magazine Crow that bent wire in 2002 experiment 'using natural behaviour'Belfast Telegraph all 3 news articles »

 
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r0B0t: Robots will cover the Olympics for The Washington Post | TechCrunch - TechCrunch  

TechCrunch

Robots will cover the Olympics for The Washington Post | TechCrunch TechCrunch The Washington Post announced today that it will use artificial intelligence to report key information about the Olympics. The software will contribute The.. The Washington Post will use robots to write stories about the Rio OlympicsRecode The Washington Post's Newest Olympics Reporter Is Artificial ...FishbowlDC (blog) Robot reporters covering Olympics for the Washington PostThe Stack all 9 news articles »

 
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The perfect end  

ArtGordon1 posted a photo:

 
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Half  

ArtGordon1 posted a photo:

 
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Dark and light  

ArtGordon1 posted a photo:

 
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http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fastrid-puentes-riaao%2Findigenous-people-of-the_b_11412180.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dgreen%26ir%3DGreen&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8  
Indigenous People of the Americas Have New Hope for Justice  
June 15 was a historic day. After 17 years of negotiations, the American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was approved. That's cause for celebration.

The Declaration brings advances on many fronts. It means States must commit to respecting the rights of indigenous peoples, including their rights to land, territory, and a healthy environment. It means respecting sustainable development. It recognizes that violence against indigenous women "prevents and nullifies the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms." And it reinforces the rights of indigenous peoples to participation; to prior consultation; and to free, prior, and informed consent - particularly when they're faced with harm to their territories.

The need for effective justice

As the Organization of American States was approving the Declaration, activists held a Global Day of Action to call for justice for Berta Cáceres, the Honduran indigenous rights defender assassinated on March 3.

These simultaneous events demonstrate the lack of effective justice in the region. Latin America yearns for justice, particularly with regard to human rights violations caused by extractive, energy, tourism, and infrastructure projects. The events also highlight the urgent need to put declarations and international obligations into practice.

Berta's death was foreshadowed. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights asked the Honduran government to take precautionary measures to protect her life, which the government did not do. Two days after her death, the Commission also requested protective measures for the organization she led, the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH). Just days later, however, Nelson García, another of the organization's members, was assassinated.

The primary demand on the Global Day of Action was to create a commission of independent experts to investigate the murders and to help uncover the truth.

The assassinations of Berta and Nelson are not exceptions. More than 100 people dedicated to protecting their lands, forests, and rivers have been murdered in Honduras since 2010. And it's not only there. Brazil, Colombia, Nicaragua, and Peru are four of the five most violent countries in the world for environmental defenders (alongside the Philippines).

2015 has been widely recognized as "the worst year on record" for those who defend the Earth.

Towards real development

Berta dedicated her life to defending rivers. At the time of her death, she was working to save her people's territory from being flooded by the Agua Zarca Dam on the Gualquarque River. Indigenous communities there have taken stands against more than 50 extractive and energy projects affecting their land, the majority of which violate national and international law.

Her case has thrust into the spotlight the realities of development in Latin America.

Although governments--with the help of international financial institutions, national banks, and foreign investors--promote extractive, energy, tourism, and infrastructure projects as essential to development and poverty alleviation, the reality is quite different.

Systematically, these projects are built in violation of laws and without adequate planning or evaluation of impacts on the environment and human rights. Sustainable alternatives are rarely evaluated at all. In fact, many of the projects pushed through in Latin America would not be viable in developed countries, where better technologies and safeguards are the norm.

Special Rapporteurs to the United Nations have been calling attention to this issue for years. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights also recognized it in a recent report on extractive industries and their impacts on tribal and indigenous peoples.

Unfortunately, the Commission is undergoing an unprecedented financial crisis because States aren't making sufficient contributions. Some have delayed or withdrawn funding because of conflicts over the Commission's rulings on extractive and energy projects in their territories. The clearest example can be found in Brazil, which reacted to the Commission's call to suspend Belo Monte Dam construction by withdrawing its ambassador, initiating a thorough review of the Commission, and freezing financial contributions. Brazil has yet to re-establish a regular contribution to the body.

Hope and opportunity

For all these reasons, approval of the American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is encouraging news. It's essential that the rights and obligations it contains be upheld immediately.

Starting with Berta's case, States must demonstrate their seriousness. They must show, through action, that they recognize the problems facing the region; that they're reaching for truth and justice; and that they favor real development to uplift their people.

Latin America has a historic opportunity. Governments can finally join the 21st Century by respecting the rule of law, practicing what they preach, and promoting development that cares for our natural resources and those who most intimately depend on them.

-- 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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The Olympic Accounting Muddle  
Depending on which article you read and which day you read it, Rio's costs of hosting the 2016 Olympics is anywhere between $4.6 billion and $20 billion. Given that Rio's Olympic revenues will be approximately $3.3 billion, there will be a substantial loss at either cost figure. But in one case it will be $1.6 billion and in the other $16.7 billion. With Rio's and Brazil's fiscal finances in deep deficit, and with public servants not being paid and social services in near dysfunction, it makes a significant difference whether the loss is $1.6 billion or 10 times greater at $16.7 billion.

So, how do we understand what the real cost is? First, there are essentially three buckets of money that are used to host the Olympics: operations costs, including security; venue construction or renovation costs; and infrastructure costs. Many press articles refer only to the operations costs, which account for spending during the 17 days of the Games and the temporary venues. Others refer to operations plus venues, and still others refer to all three.

When infrastructure costs are included, they are based on officially released estimates. The accuracy of these estimates should be treated with a healthy dose of skepticism. Second, consider that Rio was awarded the Games in 2009. At the time, and for several subsequent years, the Brazilian currency, the reais, was worth approximately 50 cents. Today it is worth about 30 cents. Suppose ROCOG (the Rio Organizing Committee of the Games) commissions construction of a broadcasting and media center and a velodrome in 2010 at a cost of 1 billion reais. At the time, this sum was equivalent to $500 million, but if the reais figure is converted at today's exchange rate, the cost comes in at $300 million.

Third, it is not clear what infrastructure spending is included in the Olympic budget. I have not seen a breakdown of Rio's infrastructure spending, but based on previous games, there can be ample chicanery here. For example, in the case of Beijing's hosting the winter Olympics in 2022, the Chinese have already announced that they are not going to count the high-speed railways they are building between Beijing and the sites of the Nordic and Alpine skiing events (60 and 120 miles from Beijing respectively) because, they say, these rails would have been built whether or not Beijing hosted the Games. Really? High-speed rail would have been built to develop two ski areas adjacent to the Gobi desert that receive less than 10 inches of snow per year, in a country that does not have a culture of winter skiing? Also not counted is the billions of dollars it is costing to transfer water from southern China to the north.

What we do know about Rio's infrastructure spending is that the metro from Ipanema beach to the wealthy suburb, 10 miles away, Barra da Tijuca -- where the main Olympic cluster lies -- was supposed to cost $1.6 billion and is now officially estimated at $3 billion. If anyone tells you that Rio would have built this metro line anyway, then you should suggest they join Trump's team of economic advisors.

Fourth, it is frequently claimed that a majority of construction spending on the Games is being defrayed by the private sector. Perhaps, but some facilities that were to be privately funded have required infusions of public funds as the developers have pulled out, been indicted for corruption or gone bankrupt. Further, in order to induce the private spending, the government has offered handsome inducements: land grants, tax abatements and low-interest loans from a state bank. These all represent significant public costs, but they are not included as costs in the Olympic budget.

I lean to the $20 billion cost estimate. Here's why: In addition to the above issues, the initial budget estimate for the Games was $14.4 billion (and that was before golf and rugby were added as sports for 2016.) The average cost overrun for the summer Games since 1976 is 252 percent, according to a study at the University of Oxford. An update of this study estimates that Rio is experiencing an overrun of 51 percent before including infrastructure costs. Using the modest 51 percent estimate and the initial budget yields a cost of $21.7 billion.

Even this number minimizes the profound social costs (77,200 evictions of residents from favelas), environmental degradation and instability that hosting has engendered.

-- 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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London at Sunset  

Waterford_Man posted a photo:

From Greenwich

Thanks for all the views, Please check out my other photos and albums.

 
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London at Sunset  

Waterford_Man posted a photo:

From Greenwich

Thanks for all the views, Please check out my other photos and albums.

 
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Jill Stein's Dangerous Anti-Science Campaign  

On July 28th, 2016, Hillary Clinton became the first woman to ever be nominated for president on a major party ticket in the United States. Her primary battle was hard-won against democratic socialist Bernie Sanders, who ran an insurgent campaign within the Democratic Party. He attempted to paint Clinton as a corrupt, corporate Democrat without the will or ability to work toward genuine political reform. He eventually endorsed Clinton for president and moved to nominate her by acclamation at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. But among his millions of followers, another candidate's name was beginning to circulate.

Dr. Jill Stein is a medical doctor and political activist who currently hails from Massachusetts. She graduated cum laude from Harvard University before going on to receive a degree from Harvard Medical School. Throughout the 1990s, she was known among environmentalists for her work fusing human health to environmental concerns. She also won the role of Town Meeting Seat in Lexington, Massachusetts in 2005 and was reelected to the seat once.

As Stein's influence grew, she earned the nomination of the Green Party and ran for President of the United States in 2012, garnering less than half of one percent of the popular vote and securing no electoral votes.

This year, once again the Green Party nominee, she hopes to change that through a populist appeal to Bernie Sanders voters. Stein laid the groundwork by essentially offering Bernie Sanders the option of running as the Green Party nominee in place of her when he lost to Clinton. It was a shrewd move, as she knew he was going to stick with Clinton. Her offer, combined with his rejection, would signal to less politically astute supporters that he wasn't serious about reform and caved to the Democratic machine.

Of course, this isn't even slightly true. Sanders dramatically altered the Democratic Party platform, which was a huge victory for his movement and would've been impossible had he defected to the Green Party before the election cycle was complete. Only through supporting the Democratic Party could he hope to see his reforms fully adopted during a Democratic administration, and he's shown himself willing to play ball, albeit begrudgingly.

Stein's plan to court left-wing voters disillusioned with the Democrats worked better than political watchers had anticipated. Her media stock rose as she engaged in pointed anti-Clinton rhetoric. In Stein's world, Hillary Clinton is irredeemably corrupt with an appetite for war and loathing for the environment. Never mind that Clinton's actual voting record doesn't support the caricature. Stein's barbs aren't meant to reveal truth, rather provoke. Her style is remarkably similar to Donald Trump in its vapidity. One of her nastiest tweets attacked Clinton as a mother.

Green Party pandering for media attention has begun to take a more dangerous turn as Stein winks at dangerous conspiracy theories. Her comments in seeming support of the anti-vaccination fringe raise alarm, especially because she's repeated variations of them in multiple settings.

Here's what Stein, a medical doctor, told the Washington Post:

“There were concerns among physicians about what the vaccination schedule meant, the toxic substances like mercury which used to be rampant in vaccines. There were real questions that needed to be addressed. I think some of them at least have been addressed. I don't know if all of them have been addressed.”

Notice the Trumpian ending. Stein just doesn't really know if vaccines are totally safe. This is disturbing stuff, given a trend of vaccine skepticism being promoted by medically illiterate celebrities and known fraudsters like Dr. Joseph Mercola, who's been repeatedly warned by the FDA over federal law violations.

Stein was directly asked about the Green Party stance on vaccinations in a Reddit AMA and replied, “I don't know if we have an ‘official' stance.” She then continued with a paragraph full of conspiratorial fear-mongering about regulatory agencies, a favorite target of the anti-science homeopathy and “alternative medicine” movements.

Recently, Stein went so far as to suggest wireless signals are bad for children's brains and punctuated her reckless statement with this alarmist soundbite: “We make guinea pigs out of whole populations and then we discover how many die.” (Apparently, for all Stein is vehemently against, casual references to animal testing doesn't make the list.)

The stunning lack of medical and scientific literacy, from a seasoned medical professional who certainly knows better, continues in her food policy. Her official platform states, “Label GMOs, and put a moratorium on GMOs and pesticides until they are proven safe.” This is absurd, as GMOs have been repeatedly found to be safe. There's zero serious scientific debate on this point, because the evidence is in and results are clear. GMO crops could save hundreds of thousands of children's lives in a single year. Stein is trying to stop their development to satisfy anti-science extremists.

Her non-medical pandering often dips into comical absurdity, such as the time she suggested appointing fugitive Edward Snowden to her Cabinet if she won the election. I'm all for principled whistle-blowing, but the idea of nominating a guy who leaked government secrets to the media as Secretary of Homeland Security seems beyond ridiculous. Pardoning Snowden is probably the right thing to do, installing him in the White House is just frightening.

Another chuckle-worthy nugget related to national security, taken from her platform: “Ban use of drone aircraft for assassination, bombing, and other offensive purposes.” That's the whole statement. Would she rather send manned aircraft and put more of our military in harm's way? She's not for disbanding the armed forces, so maybe that's the case. Hard to say when her platform is little more than a talking points cheat sheet.

The whole charade of Stein's media-driven candidacy covers the fact that the Green Party has no ground game. This is a one-candidate show, not a genuine reformist party working to change a system from the local level. Unlike the Libertarian Party, the Green Party doesn't hold a single state house seat. If this was a party sincere about its mission, it would be building infrastructure from the local level.

Instead, we have what amounts to a celebrity campaign seemingly designed to foil the Democrats. In a year where our democracy is threatened by a terrifying demagogue, the Green Party is revealing itself to be reckless and full of hot air. A vote for Jill Stein is a vote that doesn't go to the only candidate who can realistically defeat Donald Trump.

Liberals deserve better than Jill Stein. Luckily, with the assistance of Bernie Sanders, they already have the most progressive Democratic Party platform in history. Hillary Clinton may not be an ideological firebrand, but she listens to voters and makes serious policy proposals informed by their concerns. That's what a democratic leader does, and that's why she has my enthusiastic vote.

Jill Stein needs to head back to the drawing board and reevaluate her priorities.

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

 
gaia  

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Young Inventors Work On Secret Proteins To Thwart Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria  

Many of the most powerful antibiotics have lost their punch. Some Stanford students think they've found a different way to attack bacteria that the germs can't overcome.

 
science  

%feed  
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Jill Stein's Dangerous Anti-Science Campaign  

On July 28th, 2016, Hillary Clinton became the first woman to ever be nominated for president on a major party ticket in the United States. Her primary battle was hard-won against democratic socialist Bernie Sanders, who ran an insurgent campaign within the Democratic Party. He attempted to paint Clinton as a corrupt, corporate Democrat without the will or ability to work toward genuine political reform. He eventually endorsed Clinton for president and moved to nominate her by acclamation at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. But among his millions of followers, another candidate's name was beginning to circulate.

Dr. Jill Stein is a medical doctor and political activist who currently hails from Massachusetts. She graduated cum laude from Harvard University before going on to receive a degree from Harvard Medical School. Throughout the 1990s, she was known among environmentalists for her work fusing human health to environmental concerns. She also won the role of Town Meeting Seat in Lexington, Massachusetts in 2005 and was reelected to the seat once.

As Stein's influence grew, she earned the nomination of the Green Party and ran for President of the United States in 2012, garnering less than half of one percent of the popular vote and securing no electoral votes.

This year, once again the Green Party nominee, she hopes to change that through a populist appeal to Bernie Sanders voters. Stein laid the groundwork by essentially offering Bernie Sanders the option of running as the Green Party nominee in place of her when he lost to Clinton. It was a shrewd move, as she knew he was going to stick with Clinton. Her offer, combined with his rejection, would signal to less politically astute supporters that he wasn't serious about reform and caved to the Democratic machine.

Of course, this isn't even slightly true. Sanders dramatically altered the Democratic Party platform, which was a huge victory for his movement and would've been impossible had he defected to the Green Party before the election cycle was complete. Only through supporting the Democratic Party could he hope to see his reforms fully adopted during a Democratic administration, and he's shown himself willing to play ball, albeit begrudgingly.

Stein's plan to court left-wing voters disillusioned with the Democrats worked better than political watchers had anticipated. Her media stock rose as she engaged in pointed anti-Clinton rhetoric. In Stein's world, Hillary Clinton is irredeemably corrupt with an appetite for war and loathing for the environment. Never mind that Clinton's actual voting record doesn't support the caricature. Stein's barbs aren't meant to reveal truth, rather provoke. Her style is remarkably similar to Donald Trump in its vapidity. One of her nastiest tweets attacked Clinton as a mother.

Green Party pandering for media attention has begun to take a more dangerous turn as Stein winks at dangerous conspiracy theories. Her comments in seeming support of the anti-vaccination fringe raise alarm, especially because she's repeated variations of them in multiple settings.

Here's what Stein, a medical doctor, told the Washington Post:

“There were concerns among physicians about what the vaccination schedule meant, the toxic substances like mercury which used to be rampant in vaccines. There were real questions that needed to be addressed. I think some of them at least have been addressed. I don't know if all of them have been addressed.”

Notice the Trumpian ending. Stein just doesn't really know if vaccines are totally safe. This is disturbing stuff, given a trend of vaccine skepticism being promoted by medically illiterate celebrities and known fraudsters like Dr. Joseph Mercola, who's been repeatedly warned by the FDA over federal law violations.

Stein was directly asked about the Green Party stance on vaccinations in a Reddit AMA and replied, “I don't know if we have an ‘official' stance.” She then continued with a paragraph full of conspiratorial fear-mongering about regulatory agencies, a favorite target of the anti-science homeopathy and “alternative medicine” movements.

Recently, Stein went so far as to suggest wireless signals are bad for children's brains and punctuated her reckless statement with this alarmist soundbite: “We make guinea pigs out of whole populations and then we discover how many die.” (Apparently, for all Stein is vehemently against, casual references to animal testing doesn't make the list.)

The stunning lack of medical and scientific literacy, from a seasoned medical professional who certainly knows better, continues in her food policy. Her official platform states, “Label GMOs, and put a moratorium on GMOs and pesticides until they are proven safe.” This is absurd, as GMOs have been repeatedly found to be safe. There's zero serious scientific debate on this point, because the evidence is in and results are clear. GMO crops could save hundreds of thousands of children's lives in a single year. Stein is trying to stop their development to satisfy anti-science extremists.

Her non-medical pandering often dips into comical absurdity, such as the time she suggested appointing fugitive Edward Snowden to her Cabinet if she won the election. I'm all for principled whistle-blowing, but the idea of nominating a guy who leaked government secrets to the media as Secretary of Homeland Security seems beyond ridiculous. Pardoning Snowden is probably the right thing to do, installing him in the White House is just frightening.

Another chuckle-worthy nugget related to national security, taken from her platform: “Ban use of drone aircraft for assassination, bombing, and other offensive purposes.” That's the whole statement. Would she rather send manned aircraft and put more of our military in harm's way? She's not for disbanding the armed forces, so maybe that's the case. Hard to say when her platform is little more than a talking points cheat sheet.

The whole charade of Stein's media-driven candidacy covers the fact that the Green Party has no ground game. This is a one-candidate show, not a genuine reformist party working to change a system from the local level. Unlike the Libertarian Party, the Green Party doesn't hold a single state house seat. If this was a party sincere about its mission, it would be building infrastructure from the local level.

Instead, we have what amounts to a celebrity campaign seemingly designed to foil the Democrats. In a year where our democracy is threatened by a terrifying demagogue, the Green Party is revealing itself to be reckless and full of hot air. A vote for Jill Stein is a vote that doesn't go to the only candidate who can realistically defeat Donald Trump.

Liberals deserve better than Jill Stein. Luckily, with the assistance of Bernie Sanders, they already have the most progressive Democratic Party platform in history. Hillary Clinton may not be an ideological firebrand, but she listens to voters and makes serious policy proposals informed by their concerns. That's what a democratic leader does, and that's why she has my enthusiastic vote.

Jill Stein needs to head back to the drawing board and reevaluate her priorities.

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

 
science  

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Being Overweight Makes The Brain Age Faster -- Much Faster  

Scientists have long suspected that being overweight affects the brain. Now, a neuroimaging study from the University of Cambridge provides dramatic new evidence of how great the effects can be (Ronan et al., 2016).

The study, published in the journal Neurobiology of Aging, compared a group of people with a normal Body Mass Index (BMI) of 19.5 to an overweight and obese group with a BMI averaging 43.4. It found that “cerebral white matter volume in overweight and obese individuals was associated with a greater degree of atrophy, with maximal effects in middle-age.”

The biggest changes were seen in the brain's white matter, the tissue responsible for communicating information between regions of the brain. White matter makes up around half the volume of the brain, and it connects various regions of gray matter to coordinate their functions. It joins all four of the brain's lobes (frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital) with each other, and with the emotional brain or limbic system in the center.

The researchers looked at the brains of 527 people aged 20 to 87. They found few differences in the brains of younger people. By age 50, however, the effects of obesity in the brain were dramatic, with the brain of an obese 50 year old, for instance, looking like the brain of a lean 60 year old.

 Other studies have shown that obesity is associated with other diseases like diabetes, cancer, and heart disease. An examination of the lifespan differences found that obesity cuts 8 years off your lifespan. But when the effects of obesity-related diseases are factored in, the difference rises to 30 years (Grover et al., 2015).

One of the brain study's investigators, Professor Sadaf Farooqi of the Institute of Metabolic Science at Cambridge, says: “We don't yet know the implications of these changes in brain structure. Clearly, this must be a starting point for us to explore in more depth the effects of weight, diet and exercise on the brain and memory.”

This raises the intriguing question of whether weight loss can reverse the brain atrophy found in overweight people. One of the study's authors, professor Paul Fletcher of the Department of Psychiatry wonders “whether these changes could be reversible with weight loss, which may well be the case.”

While long term weight loss is elusive, with research showing that most dieters regain even more weight than they lost, there are several new studies demonstrating that it is possible. When emotional eating is successfully treated, not only do dieters maintain their new weight, they continue losing weight over time.

A study at Bond University found that using EFT or Emotional Freedom Techniques, a common treatment for psychological trauma, dieters lost an additional 11.1 lb over the course of the subsequent year (Stapleton, Sheldon et al., 2012; Stapleton, Bannatyne et al., 2016). Lead researcher, psychology professor Dr. Peta Stapleton, is now using neuroimaging to study the brains of these successful losers. This will provide clues as to whether the atrophy noted in the Cambridge study is reversible.

References

Ronan, L., Alexander-Bloch, A. F., Wagstyl, K., Farooqi, S., Brayne, C., Tyler, L. K., & Fletcher, P. C. (2016). Obesity associated with increased brain-age from mid-life. Neurobiology of Aging.

Grover, S. A., Kaouache, M., Rempel, P., Joseph, L., Dawes, M., Lau, D. C., & Lowensteyn, I. (2015). Years of life lost and healthy life-years lost from diabetes and cardiovascular disease in overweight and obese people: a modelling study. The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, 3(2), 114-122.

Stapleton, P., Sheldon, T., & Porter, B. (2012). Clinical benefits of Emotional Freedom Techniques on food cravings at 12-months follow-up: A randomized controlled trial. Energy Psychology: Theory, Research, & Treatment, 4(1), 13-24.

Stapleton, P., Bannatyne, A., Porter, B., Urzi, K.C., & Sheldon, T. (2016). Food for thought: A randomised controlled trial of emotional freedom techniques and cognitive behavioural therapy in the treatment of food cravings. Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being. In press.

-- 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: Curiosity has disproved 'old idea of Mars as a simple basaltic planet' - Phys.Org  

Phys.Org

Curiosity has disproved 'old idea of Mars as a simple basaltic planet' Phys.Org This artist's concept features NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover, a mobile robot for investigating Mars' past or present ability to sustain microbial life. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. As NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) celebrates ... Alien megastructure star's strange behaviour can't be understood with traditional explanations, scientists sayThe Independent NASA just dumped a trove of photos of Mars' dunes, craters, and mountainsThe Verge NASA Selects Companies Mars Orbiter Studies25 minutes agoPhotonics.com The Inquisitr -Wired.co.uk -Engadget -TechCrunch all 22 news articles »

 
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Wildlife officials urge people to stop painting endangered turtle shells  

‘If you want to paint something, paint a rock,' Florida officials implore after shells of a threatened tortoise species were found daubed with paint

Wildlife officials in Florida have urged people to not illustrate the shells of a threatened tortoise species after several animals were found daubed with paint.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) has released photos of gopher tortoises that were painted red and a shade of turquoise. The FWC said the “illegally painted” tortoises were at risk from paint fumes and from toxins that could be absorbed into the bloodstream via the shell.

Continue reading...  
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'Green News Report' - August 9, 2016  
The Green News Report is also available via...





IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: In Rio Olympics' opening ceremony, Brazil goes big on global warming and the environment; U.S. government to use global warming 'litmus test' for all new projects; Melting Arctic ice uncovering anthrax and toxic waste; Happy Earth Overshoot Day; PLUS: Florida gets approval to release GMO mosquitoes... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): What Happens to the U.S. Midwest When the Water's Gone?; Researchers find unsafe levels of industrial chemicals in drinking water of 6 million Americans; Climate Changes at Rio Olympics is Risky For The Health and Performance of Athletes; Chevron Wins Big in $9.5 Billion Oil Pollution Case. But It's Not Over; A Year After Toxic River Spill, No Clear Plan To Clean Up Western Mines; Two former Republican EPA administrators throw support to Clinton... PLUS: Customers Could Pay $2.5 Billion for Nuclear Plants That Never Get Built... and much, MUCH more! ...

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

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

 
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Brad Friedman and Desi Doyen: 'Green News Report' - August 9, 2016  
The Green News Report is also available via...

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: In Rio Olympics' opening ceremony, Brazil goes big on global warming and ...

Read more: Climate Change, Climate Change Denial, Energy, Environment, Fossil Fuels, Global Warming, Global Warming Deniers, Green News, Green News Report, Regulation, Renewable Energy, Republicans, Video, Arctic, Greenland, Anthrax, Toxic Waste, Rio Olympics, Olympics, Deforestation, Earth Overshoot Day, Council on Environmental Quality, Brazil, Zika, Florida, Gmos, Cdc, Keystone XL Pipeline, Green News

 
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Landscape of Big Ben  

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Summer dreaming  

sneaky winey posted a photo:

Dusk descends,
the meadow quietens,
rest, and dream summer dreams - ready for a new day.

 
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The Fight Against ISIS in Libya (20 photos)  

As my colleague Dominic Tierney points out, the United States has now picked a side in Libya's civil war—the UN-backed, internationally recognized, Government of National Accord (GNA)—and has begun coordinated airstrikes against ISIS positions in Libya. However, ISIS and the GNA are only two of dozens of competing militias and groups involved in the chaotic struggle to gain control of Libya since the fall of Muammar Qaddafi in 2011. Reuters photographer Goran Tomasevic has spent much of the past two months in Libya with fighters loyal to the GNA, mostly brigades from Misrata, as they waged ground battles with ISIS in the town of Sirte. Tomasevic: "When everyone shouts 'Allahu Akbar' (God is Great) I know that a tank or a cannon will fire."

 
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The Inevitability of Dirty Bombs  

In the years since the September 11 attacks, the U.S. government has spent billions in the name of fighting terrorism. However, America has largely ignored one critical threat: dirty bombs. According to Steven Brill, the author of The Atlantic's September 2016 cover story “Are We Any Safer?”, a dirty bomb is easy to construct and potentially disastrous. In this video, Brill explains what would happen to Washington, D.C. if a dirty bomb were to hit, and how the federal government can and should prepare its citizens for such a destabilizing event.

 
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r0B0t: Roomba 980 review: Living in the future with a robot vacuum cleaner - International Business Times UK  

International Business Times UK

Roomba 980 review: Living in the future with a robot vacuum cleaner International Business Times UK Having a robotic vacuum cleaner buzzing around while you get on with something else feels a lot like living in the future. Of all the technology we have smartphones, tablets, Wi-Fi, electric cars a cleaning robot is the one which will make you ... Dyson 360 Eye vacuum review: the robot that sucks (but in a good way)The Guardian iRobot's Roomba 960 is Their Cheaper Wi-Fi Connected Robot VacuumChip Chick all 3 news articles »

 
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Michael&nbsp;Green: Demanding Protection From Fossil Fuels  
The fossil fuel industry has been at the center of the climate change debate, for good reason. We urgently need to transition from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy sources in order to stave off catastrophic climate disaster.

Read more: Fossil Fuels, Environment, Climate Change, Public Health, Green News

 
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Neil Zevnik: Why We Need To Get 'Back To The Roots'  
Back To The Roots was founded by two eager and dedicated Berkeley grads. The startup aims to change the way the next generation views and experiences its relationship to everyday foods.

Read more: Environment, Green Living, Green Business, Organic Food, Organic Gardening, Green News

 
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HANG OUT - HANG OM  

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r0B0t: A new photoshopping chatbot shows artificial intelligence is more fun when it's dumb - New Statesman  

New Statesman

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Is Pokémon Go racist? How the app may be redlining communities of color USA TODAY SAN FRANCISCO — While playing the popular augmented-reality game Pokémon Go in Long Beach, a city that is nearly 50% white, Aura Bogado made an unsettling discovery — there were far more PokéStops and Gyms, locations where people pick up ... Best Free Pokémon Go Bots: What is Necrobot and how do I automatically snipe Pokémon?TrustedReviews Pokémon Go introduces 'Sightings' function to track nearby creaturesDaily Mail Pokemon Go Gets New 'Nearby' TrackerPC Magazine Tech Times -TechRadar -Mirror.co.uk -Forbes all 247 news articles »

 
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