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The 11th Hour: A Titanic Effect On The Climate Conversation  
(Cross-posted at Citizens Climate Lobby)

Studies show that the voting public grasps a problem really only when politicians and the media talk about it repeatedly and with urgency. Climate scientists say that the window of opportunity is closing, and the important decisions to avoid dangerous [global] warming must be made in the next four to eight years.

Desi Doyen of the nationally syndicated Green News Report, August 2, 2016

Politicians may not be discussing climate change with the necessary urgency, and mainstream media entities have yet to "wake up and smell the carbon" (to quote environmental journalist Betsy Rosenberg), but as Desi Doyen suggests, powerful voices can indeed direct public attention to the issue of climate protection--and a new study reaffirms this reality.

As the Washington Post's Chris Mooney reports:

Earlier this year, a team of researchers documented that when Charlie Sheen told the world that he had HIV, media attention to the virus -- which had been in long decline -- spiked massively. And now, many of the same researchers are back with another demonstration. They find that when Leonardo DiCaprio used his Oscar speech earlier this year to exhort action on climate change, tweets and Google searches about the topic were enormous and, at least in the case of tweets, appear to have set a new record based on analyses between 2011 and the present.

"A single speech, at a very opportunistic time, at the Oscar ceremony, resulted in the largest increase in public engagement with climate change ever," says John Ayers of San Diego State University, who completed the work with colleagues from the University of California San Diego, the Santa Fe Institute, and other institutions. Their study was just published in the open access journal PLOS One....



The authors add that when DiCaprio spoke, the total number of Tweets that contained the phrases "climate change" or "global warming" "were at the highest recorded value in our database with more than 250,000 tweets on that day." And then there were the Google searches. These, too, spiked, so much so that it represented the "third-highest point ever recorded for climate change or global warming on Google trends."

Shortly after DiCaprio's Oscar win, Suzanne Goldenberg of The Guardian
chronicled DiCaprio's two decades of dedication to action on climate. DiCaprio has worked with nationally-syndicated radio host Thom Hartmann on a
series of compelling short films about the need to combat carbon pollution, as well as a longer documentary on our planetary peril that was recently
acquired for distribution by National Geographic Channel (which will also broadcast the follow-up to the acclaimed 2014 series Years of Living Dangerously beginning October 30).

As was the case with the original series, Years of Living Dangerously 2 will focus on those pushing for effective solutions to the problem of carbon pollution--including the Citizens Climate Lobby members who attended this past June's international conference and lobby day in Washington, D.C. (actor Bradley Whitford was the special correspondent for the CCL-related segment). YOLD 2 and the as-yet-untitled DiCaprio documentary will continue to raise needed awareness about the consequences of carbon. Hopefully, the success of both productions will encourage cable and network television decision-makers to dramatically expand climate-focused content on our channels (after all, the Summer Olympics
only come once every four years). If DiCaprio and other concerned celebrities can induce the mainstream media to give climate change the lead-story coverage it deserves, it will mark the inception of dramatic progress in the fight for a stable future.

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Beyond The Bad Press: Rio de Janeiro's Urban Forests  
Over the next few weeks, the first Olympic Games ever to be hosted in South America will be taking place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In the lead up to the global event, Rio has been getting extensive media attention, most of it not being the best of publicity. Inadequate and incomplete infrastructure, corruption, and the Zika virus are just some of the issues that have been getting the spotlight. Rio's environmental debacles have also been getting a lot of global attention: a contaminated bay and beaches where athletes from around the world are coming to compete in is particularly worrying. The city lacks a basic sewage system and the Bay of Guanabara was supposed to be cleaned up before the start of the games (but never was). Yet despite all the negative media and attitudes, Rio's Olympic Opening Ceremony provided a peek into one of the many reasons the Cidade Maravilhosa (or Marvelous City) gets its name and an impressive environmental trait that not many other cities can claim: Rio de Janeiro has the world's largest urban forest.

In what was another first for the Olympic Games, the Opening Ceremony highlighted the host country's rich cultural and environmental diversity. It made an extraordinary statement as it brought climate change and human's responsibility to the forefront of the audience's attention, as well as the role forests and trees play in combating a warmer world. The ceremony even went even further by giving each country participating in the games a seed of a different native tree species that would then be planted in Rio's Athlete's Park (totaling 207 different species of trees).

When forests are mentioned along with "Brazil," the Amazon rainforest is usually the first thing to come to mind. Yet the country is actually home to various unique forests and ecosystems that create Brazil's ecological makeup. The Mata Atlântica is a forest that runs along Brazil's coast and that, although smaller in size, "harbors a range of biological diversity similar to that of the Amazon." Rio de Janeiro's urban forest and national park (Parque Nacional da Tijuca) makes up 3,953 hectares or 39 square kilometers (15 square miles) of the Mata Atlântica.

Why the big deal about urban forests? Forests are vital players in the ecosystem and have an important role in providing us with essential natural resources and services. Besides removing CO2 from the air and providing oxygen, regulating soil erosion and runoff, acting as a filter for clean water, and promoting biodiversity in landscapes that are often lacking flora and fauna, urban forests also improve the quality of life of citizens and provides them with nature and wilderness to enjoy. Living alongside forests encourages the idea of humans being a part of nature and brings tourism (in 2014, the Parque Nacional de Tijuca saw over 3 million visitors, as it also contains the famous Cristo Redentor or Christ the Redeemer statue as well as popular hikes to Pedra Bonita and Pedra da Gávea). The park is also home to 67 threatened plant species (and protects 11 species that aren't found in any other protected area) and 226 species of birds and 63 species of mammals: all this located right in the metropolitan's borders.

Some may criticize the Opening Ceremony's eco-theme and environmentally conscious framing as a way to hide the city's various environmental issues such as lack of sewage system or the country's deforestation patterns. And while these are major issues Brazil needs to address, Rio's environmental status should not be completely undermined. The city was innovative in using this year's Olympic games opening ceremony as a way to provide an important and powerful message to the millions of people that watched. It signals to us that times are changing and it also shows Brazil's potential to be an environmental leader. In a time when the Cidade Maravilhosa has gotten some negative media attention, particularly in regard to its environmental record, let's take a look at the thousands of acres of forest that can be found in the city, and laud the impressive and historic effort to bring climate change's urgency to the attention of people around the world.

In light of the Olympic Games in Rio, watch out next week for the second piece of the "Beyond the Bad Press: Rio de Janeiro's Urban Forests" series by The Sustainability Co-Op.

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Cherry or rhubarb? Orangutan mixes tasty cocktails in its mind  
A pleasure-seeking ape can predict the taste of cocktails it has never tried before, which was thought to be something only humans can do  
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Historically robust natural ecosystems could collapse due to climate change, human activity  
Global change will strike the oldest and most complex ecosystems of the world hardest, regardless of their past stability, warn experts in a new report.  
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The Freedom To Fail: Simulations And The Future Of Our Species  
"Plans are useless. Planning is everything." - Dwight David Eisenhower

If all goes as planned, in 18 days the hatch will open and our one-year mission to simulated space will end. Thanks in part to this mission, if all goes as planned, a generation from now we'll be waist-deep in our first attempt to land humans on Mars. Between now and then, plans will accumulate: a plan for building a launch vehicle; a plan for getting our stuff there (hopefully, most of it in advance); a plan for how to select and train and feed and water a crew of four or more for three years. Sometimes, twenty years feels like enough time to make all this happen. Then, I remember how long it took to plan, design, build, test, launch, and land the Mars Curiosity Rover: ~2004-2012. When a robot's one-way trip was eight years in the making, twenty years to get people safely to Mars and back suddenly seems like a mighty tall order.

Fortunately, we've already started. Our mission is proof of that.



To be fair, it took ~8 years to build not 1 but 2.5 Curiosity Rovers: the one that went to Mars, the one that lived in the test bed on Earth, and the one that existed in pieces in a software and hardware testing lab. Credit: By NASA via Wikimedia Commons.


Simulations like ours are a critical part of any serious endeavor. The reason is simple: humans need to practice in order to get things right. Whatever we attempt - be it a geometry problem, a round-house kick, or an asteroid rendezvous - the odds of our success are inextricably linked to how many times we've tried that particular maneuver before. Entropy will always introduce unforeseen twists and turns. The more times we've simulated the scenario, the less likely we are to fall flat when our standing plans fail.




Sgt. Brian Matthews, scout sniper and Marine Corps Martial Arts Program instructor trainer, 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, demonstrates a MCMAP technique as part of the martial arts demonstration during Marine Day in Times Square. Credit: Sgt. Jimmy D. Shea, MarineCorps NewYork via Wikimedia Commons (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0).

Case in point: we planned July's water supply down to within a centimeter of our tank's low-water mark. Based on the last ten months of data, our chief engineer was able to make a call that accurate. His projections were dead-on. Nonetheless, our refill plan failed. When the appointed time came, no water 'bot arrived.

This was due to a mechanical failure on their end. On our end, there is an emergency water tank for just such scenarios. However, it hadn't been touched in years. Like a stubborn Schrodinger's box, the quality of the water in our tank was totally unknown, even after we opened it. Also unknown: when we would get more water delivered.

Fortunately, though our initial plan failed, we've been practicing water extraction and water restriction for nearly the entire mission. A a result, we had the power to SCIENCE our way out of disaster by distilling the emergency water: by boiling it and channeling the evaporated contents into a container. Within hours of us realizing that we weren't going to get our scheduled water delivery, we had just such a system set up and running .



Thanks to water restriction days, which were an invention of this crew, we knew how much water we needed to produce to survive and by what margin. Experience also told us how much power we could spare to run the electric heaters that were boiling the water one pot at a time into steam that collected onto plastic sheeting, which then ran down until it gathered underneath the weight of a metal spoon and dripped into the bottom of the black storage bin in which the entire contraption was contained.

In this way, clean water collected slowly and steadily. Every so often, one of us would come along with a baster, suck the distilled water out of the bottom of the bins and add more water to the pots. This evaporation system produced liters of purified water: enough to keep us going, at least for a while.



This crew dealt with that level of potential disaster without so much as breaking a sweat. We didn't even have to change the rhythm of our day much to do it. I'm not sure how a crew who had only been up here for only a month, or four, would have handled it, which brings us to a question we are asked fairly frequently: What would happen in a real emergency?

Let's say that we hadn't been up here for very long, or that the crew was inexperienced with water reclamation; let say there wasn't enough plastic sheeting to make such a system work, or there weren't enough clamps to hold the sheeting in place (we would default to duct tape, but let's just assume for now that we're running low on that, too). What would have been our fate?

In a real emergency, there are people on this land mass who could make their way up the mountain with bottled water. On Mars, not so much. Going forward, to be sure that crews can handle it both physically and psychologically, we should probably simulate water shortages, as well as food shortages, power shortages, and all the depravation-situations with which the six of us are now intimately familiar.



It goes without saying: for most of us, becoming an expert in water purification was never the plan - nor was mastering composting toilet maintainence, repairing hiking boots with duct tape, or any of several dozen things we've taught ourselves over these last 11.5 months. The wonderful thing about our experiment is that we have the opportunity to learn and the freedom to fail - even, one could argue, the imperative. Now is the time to test out these scenarios; to try our hands at pushing limits and pulling ourselves back from the brink. Sometimes, we won't quite make it, and that's ok. We won't fall too hard or fall too far - for now.

Our relative successes and failures from the last 348 days - at growing radishes, conserving water and power, staying in shape, and getting along with each other - will become part of data that goes into planning the first human missions to Mars. Owing to successes and failures from this and other simulations, humankind will master the art and science of planning long-duration space missions. It's the only way we can acquire this skill in advance. In a generation or more, whether the actual plan succeeds as intended (they rarely do), mastery of interplanetary mission planning will sooner or later see us safely through to the next world. Of that much, at least, I am certain.

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Reinventing The Drake Equation  

"Exo-orbit" Image Copyright 2016 by Marc Dantonio

The Drake Equation is a thought problem created in 1961 by Astronomer Frank Drake that contained a number of factors that taken together could produce a number meant to indicate how many intelligent and detectable civilizations may exist in the Milky Way galaxy which is our home in the Universe.


The classical equation looks like this where all the factors are multiplied together:

N = R x fp x ne x fl x fi x fc x L


The factors break down as:
N = number of alien civilizations in the Milky Way


R = number of stars in our galaxy
fp = Fraction of stars with planets
ne = number of planets that where life as we know it can exist
fl = % of those planets where life arises
fi = % of those planets (fl) where intelligence develops
fc = % of those societies that develop electromagnetic science
fL = % of societies that emit electromagnetically into space for a long time

The Drake equation actually required guesses for many important factors. It also provided the means to quantify with a value the number of potential civilizations that emitted some form of intelligent signals that could be picked up by our current technology at the time. Drake had formulated this equation prior to any Exoplanet research and finds but as it turns out, those finds change everything...

As you can imagine and for those familiar with the equation, we dont have actual data for MOST of the Classical Drake equation factors, but they are guesses, based on human trends, human technology leaps, and so on. So with only one known life-bearing planet at the time, ours, the calculation of the ultimate value for the Drake Equation was always a conservative guess based on comparison to the progress of human civilization and the technologic precipices we faced. Naturally we dont yet know of any advanced civilization. We are all we know. We represent a single data point and only one such point is not sufficient to create a trend or an understanding.

With the most recent additions to the Exoplanet list however we at least have a way to make more educated guesses for some of the Drake factors using statistical sampling of known data. We still dont have the proof of extraterrestrial intelligent life yet but some of the Drake factors can be addressed with more accuracy. In our current Exoplanet count we puts the total number of Exoplanets somewhat north of 3300. This is very exciting. Originally the planet hunting results were more limited, providing us with the ability to find only the biggest Jupiter sized planets. But as techniques were honed to a finer art, we started to find smaller more Earth sized planets.

In the Exoplanet catalog of known planets a fair number of our confirmed planets are known as "Super-Earths". The term is the nomenclature applied to any planet that is under 10 Earth masses. Super-Earth implies Earth -like I know but the term doesnt distinguish between planets that are habitable or not. It just says that if its between 1 and 10 times Earth's mass, its a Super-Earth. Such a planet could be a massive paradise, a seething maelstrom of gases, or an airless rock.

The ability to find such planets however represents a significant improvement in planet detection capability. Currently it is theorized in some circles that as many as 10% of the stars in our galaxy may have suitable habitable zone planets, which is a number between 10 billion and 40 billion. There are more conservative estimates as well but these numbers are also in mainstream thought.

A number of factors in the equation have requirements not readily apparent. The planet must be in that habitable zone around its star. If you read my Huffington Post blog article on Habitable Zones you know that this zone is that not too hot not to cold region around any star where a planet could support liquid water and could manage to hold onto an atmosphere. In addition to the habitable zone requirement, a stable star is also a requirement. Such a restriction removes a number of hotter more energetic stars from our hunting list because the radiation and strong stellar winds emanating from those particular stars would likely have blown the atmospheres off the planets or irradiated their surfaces to sterility.

(You can read about this in Understanding Exoplanets : The Habitable Zone at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marc-dantonio/ )

Returning to the Drake Equation, we have to consider that when Frank Drake wrote up the thought problem that eventually became the Drake Equation, he did this THIRTY FOUR YEARS before Exoplanet searches started producing some candidates and confirmed results... We had no confirmed Exoplanets up until that point. Drake had to formulate the equation without a single planet other than the Earth as a starting point.

So as more data was obtained, analyzed and as more planets were added to the list, it became more obvious that the Classical Drake Equation no longer worked as the complexity of each term increased, Thus, the Drake Equation was reworked by a number of organizations and dozens of new papers were written addressing the new data and how it bodes for life in the Universe.

These days the Drake Equation two particular versions of the re-imagined Drake equation take front and center and produce different results between them. Both I am happy to say are more optimistic. One version linked below appears in Astrobiology magazine, and discusses the Drake equation from two separate trains of thought: The Classical Drake equation and the Statistical Drake equation. The Statistical version is a much more complex equation that takes into account various new potential paths that an alien civilization can traverse on its way to being a star faring society.

The second version, a similarly credible version postulated by an MIT professor changes some of the original parameters in the equation to better suit the known data. For instance, that version directly considers the stability of the star system, a key factor when trying to find long term suitability for life like us.

Looking at the Drake Equation with these new eyes and most especially with new data suggests a very DIFFERENT outlook than Frank Drake had postulated. New data brings us new outlooks and the new Drake equations showcase the new data and how it works for us to better understand the Universe.

One thing that the articles linked below dont directly address other than in passing is the capability of a civilization to utilize advanced propulsion such as the Alcubierre Drive which is a 'warp' drive of sorts. The reason is one of focus. The new formulations to the Drake equation care only about whether a civilization can be detected. It doesn't address interstellar travel. It is enough that they are detectable and that is what the equation is meant to help puzzle out.

Claudio Maccone who worked on one version of the Drake equation calls it more of a Statistical Drake Equation. That equation considers a statistical variation in the factors because of the many variables involved. Without considering any statistical variation the new formulation gives us 4590 potential advanced civilizations in the galaxy.

Considering the variations that MUST exist, formulating an answer to the statistical version of the Drake Equation indicates there are potentially between 0 and more than 15000 advanced societies in our galaxy alone.

In Addition, Sara Seager at MIT utilized the current finds in Exoplanet research and a new approach that doesn't make the Drake equation obsolete but creates another "new edition" that helps us predict the probability of detecting another civilization.

Her equation looks slightly different:

N = Ns x Fq x Fhz x Fo x Fl x Fs

Where the overall Number N is the number of planets that have a detectable atmospheric content that contains compounds known to support life. That number depends on these factors:
Ns: The number of stars in the sample that were used
Fq: The number of quiet stars
Fhz: The number of planets in the Habitable Zones around their stars
Fo: The number of actual observable systems we can see
Fl: The fraction of those many planets where life has arisen
Fs: The fraction of planets with detectable spectral signatures

Her calculations of a sample of 30,000 stars gives N=2. This means that in her sample of 30,000 stars there are potentially 2 star systems that are predicted to show detectable, active life on a habitable zone planet. 2 civilizations seems a bit pessimistic at first glance but that number conceals a vast probability when you consider all of the stars in the galaxy and extrapolate. Why?

Because our galaxy alone has between 100 and 400 BILLION stars. So on the low end of the estimate of only 100 billion stars her analysis predicts just over 6.5 million possible civilizations and at the higher end estimate of 400 billion stars in the galaxy, 26 million possible systems with intelligence are predicted.

What does this all mean? It means, significantly, that science is on the side of those who suspect that there is other reasonably intelligent life in the Universe. Whether it is space faring or not is beyond the scope of the equation as is a prediction of such a civilization's technological level. In my book "The Populated Universe" I discuss the many places we see the fundamental building blocks of life in the Universe.

The Universe makes these necessary items naturally without our help and we are here because of this process. So my supposition is that Life is the RULE not the exception. It is a big step to commit to that line of thinking because that position still depends on an expectation of scientific discovery that has yet to be made. But I am comfortable looking up on a starry night and mulling over the possibilities!

I hope you enjoyed this foray into the Drake equation and the children it has generated!

The links to articles that discuss the new Drake Equations are below

Claudio Maccone's research: http://www.astrobio.net/news-exclusive/at-last-how-many-alien-civilizations-are-there/

Sara Seager's research: http://io9.gizmodo.com/what-a-brand-new-equation-reveals-about-our-odds-of-fin-531575395

"TripleStarHabitat" Image Copyright 2016 by Marc Dantonio

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Robot-Like Machines Helped People With Spinal Injuries Regain Function  

Eight people with serious spinal injuries who practiced hours of interaction with wearable machines for months regained lost feeling and some ability to move.

 
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Social Security Data Errors Can Turn People Into The Living Dead  

The government keeps track of who is alive and who is dead. But there can be errors. And when you're mistakenly ruled dead, it can be remarkably tough to convince people you're still among the living.

 
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Cyberattack Halts Australia's First Online Census  

The Australian Bureau of Statistics says no data was stolen. Users faced error messages after the system was overpowered by what the government said was multiple denial-of-service attacks.

 
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endangered species. climate change. CITES CoP17... Josh Fox's documentary- Letting go of the World and love all... https://t.co/awutY4YJoR 
https://t.co/awutY4YJoR 

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London at Sunset  

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From Greenwich

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London at Sunset  

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From Greenwich

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London: Canary Wharf  

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Ban Oil Trains For Good  
Just a little over two months ago, a disastrous oil train derailment occurred in Mosier, Oregon, spilling 47,000 gallons of Bakken crude oil from North Dakota. The fallout from that accident has seen the entire region debating whether transporting this hazardous crude oil by rail through local communities and along our nation's rivers is worth the risk. It's time for the debate to close, and for all sides to realize the hard truth: oil trains like the one that derailed in Mosier pose an immediate threat to communities around the country, and it is time we demand immediate action.


Oil train derailment in Mosier, Oregon in June 2016. Photo credit: Columbia Riverkeeper


Waterkeeper Alliance's report, Deadly Crossing: Neglected Bridges & Exploding Oil Trains, written in partnership with STAND and Hudson Riverkeeper, showed that many of the bridges these oil trains pass over show signs of neglect and disrepair. The report also highlighted that the public cannot access any meaningful information regarding the safety of rail bridges in their community. In response to these concerns, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) now has a way for local officials to request public bridge inspections. This is a small victory, but the threat of these oil trains still lingers in communities across the country, and the only true solution is to ban these trains altogether.

No community wants a potentially lethal oil train speeding past their schools, behind their homes, or near their precious water sources. We need to stand together to demand a complete ban on oil trains. Please join this petition to call on the Department of Transportation to recognize that oil trains are inherently unsafe for our communities and waterways, and to use all available authority to stop oil train traffic throughout the country.

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'Green News Report' - August 11, 2016  
The Green News Report is also available via...





IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Donald Trump's 'new' energy plan, same as the old plan; Hillary Clinton calls for helping coal country transition to new industries; Out-of-work coal miners now working to clean up abandoned coal mines; Industrial chemicals found in drinking water of 6 million Americans; PLUS: Federal court ruling sets major precedent for climate change accountability... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Listen online here, or Download MP3 (6 mins)...

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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): California utility guilty of obstructing investigators; Seeking water wars accord, Deal quietly meets with Alabama governor; Seas aren't just rising. They're speeding up; A surge in avocado consumption is driving Mexican deforestation; China's $15 Billion Energy Ambitions Crushed Within Two Weeks; The waters of this huge African lake aren't mixing -- and the consequences could be devastating... PLUS: Fish-farm escapees are weakening Norwegian wild salmon genetics... 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!

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Aphrodisiac virus makes plants super-attractive to bumblebees  
The benefits of a viral infection for tomato plants may outweigh the costs infected plants attract more pollinators and therefore produce more seeds  
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World's oldest vertebrate is a shark that lives for 500 years  
Deep-sea-living Greenland sharks can live for hundreds of years, longer than any other vertebrate, and females don't reach breeding age until they are 150  
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Brad Friedman and Desi Doyen: 'Green News Report' - August 11, 2016  
The Green News Report is also available via...

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Donald Trump's 'new' energy plan, same as the old plan; Hillary Clinton c...

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, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Coal, Coal Mining, Land Reclamation, Pennsylvania, Coal Miners, Oil, Natural Gas, Social Cost of Carbon, Carbon Emissions, Department of Energy, Toxic Chemicals, Teflon, Water, Green News

 
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Pokémon GO... And Get Injured?  
From the beaches of Santa Monica to the streets of Manhattan, there is one constant -- masses of people losing themselves in the virtual splendor of Pokémon Go. After its launch on July 6th, the location-based augmented reality game became the top grossing app in the United States within a mere 13 hours, leading to Nintendo's 5-day, $9 billion skyrocket in market value. But per the age-old adage, what goes up, must come down -- and in the case of Pokémon, more literally than figuratively.

Within 10 days of Pokémon's release, two men crossed a fenced area in their desperate search of pocket monsters, and fell off a cliff near San Diego, sustaining injuries, the extent of which are unclear. Another gamer reportedly slipped and fell down a ditch, fracturing their pinky toe in the process. And while some may see such incidents as isolated, if we delve a bit deeper into the cause, it becomes painstakingly clear that such injuries are but likely portents to the future.

People have been gaming on their mobile phones ever since 1994 when the Hagenuk MT-2000 came equipped with the popular tile-matching puzzle game, Tetris. But video games require a simple linear interaction between a human and their gaming console. Tetris, for instance, requires mental focus and acuity, as well as quick dexterous responses in order to determine and swiftly place puzzle pieces into their optimal positions. It is thus considered advantageous to allocate attentional resources entirely to the game (i.e. focus on winning). Augmented reality games, on the other hand, require the human to interact with a game, which has elements of the real-world environment that they are simultaneously navigating. Accordingly, augmented reality effectively requires allocation of resources to both the game and the real world (i.e. focus on winning and negotiating the real world).



While allocating attention towards a game may increase your chances at winning in Pokémon, you may end up losing at the game of life. And the reason is clearer than a summer's day -- people aren't very good at dual-tasking (i.e. concurrently performing two tasks). Imagine sitting at a restaurant deep in conversation. The bill comes so you pull out your credit card and hand it to the server. A few minutes later, the server returns and because the restaurant is about to close, you feel obliged to quickly sign the check. Still immersed in conversation, you look at the bill and try to determine the appropriate tip amount. Typically, a math whiz, you now find yourself struggling at calculating the 15-20 percent tip. And though you fashion yourself a good listener, you have the slightest clue of what your beautiful date was saying for the last 30 seconds.

Let's say we up the stakes. Rather than dual-tasking while sitting down having a leisurely conversation, you are now walking down the street texting a friend. It should come as no surprise that performing the secondary task of texting negatively affects the way you walk. Indeed, recent research has shown that people are less likely to walk in a straight path when using their cellphone. A series of studies conducted with a few colleagues of mine further shows that manipulating a mobile device results in slower walking speeds and reduced time spent looking at obstacles in the real-world. Such degraded walking likely explains the 10-fold increase in emergency room visits among distracted pedestrians between 2006 and 2014. It sure would feel a whole lot better to just fudge a date -- regardless of how cute they may be.

Scientific research overwhelmingly supports the notion that performing a secondary action negatively impacts our performance. Even when executing simplistic texting tasks, use of a mobile phone is associated with a limited ability to avoid obstacles and an increased potential for sustaining a slip, trip, or fall. So what do you think will happen when running through Times Square trying to catch those illusive Pokémon?

-- 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 Climate Post: Volcanic Eruption Affects Sea Level Rise  
A new study in the journal Scientific Reports suggests that the evidence to pinpoint expected acceleration of sea-level rise due to climate change was hiding behind the effects of a 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo. This eruption sent tens of millions of tons of sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere and may have masked the effects of industrial pollution on global sea levels during the two decades since.

"What we've shown is that sea level acceleration is real, and it continues to be going on, it's ongoing, and we understand why you don't see it in the short satellite record," said John Fasullo, who conducted the research along with scientists from the University of Colorado in Boulder and Old Dominion University. The data from satellite observations that scientists have used to track sea-level rise began in 1993, two years after the eruption, which temporarily cooled the planet. These data indicated that the rate of sea-level rise was holding fairly steady at about 3 millimeters per year.

"When we used climate model runs designed to remove the effect of the Pinatubo eruption, we saw the rate of sea level rise accelerating in our simulations," Fasullo said. "Now that the impacts of Pinatubo have faded, this acceleration should become evident in the satellite measurements in the coming decade, barring another major volcanic eruption."

Climate Change Extending Mosquito Season, Raising Zika Risk

A portion of last week's opening Olympic ceremonies in Rio de Janeiro focused squarely on climate change. A video offered a glimpse of climate change effects and an accompanying graphic showing the incursion of sea-level rise on cities around the world if the average global temperature were to increase 3-4 degrees. Fitting perhaps, suggested The Washington Post, given warming could help accelerate outbreaks of mosquito-borne illnesses such as Zika, which has spread from Brazil to Florida, leading to serious birth defects.

Although data confirming a formal link between climate change and the rise and spread of the virus are lacking, Climate Central reports that the initial Brazilian outbreak of Zika was "aided by a drought driven by El Niño, and by higher temperatures caused by longer-term weather cycles and by rising levels of greenhouse gas pollution." Climate Central's own research recently showed that in three quarters of major U.S. cities warming temperatures have lengthened the mosquito season--the number of days hot and humid enough for mosquitoes to be biting. According to that research, the ten cities with the biggest increase in the length of the mosquito season over the last 30 years were Baltimore, Maryland; Durham, North Carolina; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; Raleigh, North Carolina; Portland, Maine; St. Louis, Missouri; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Worcester, Massachusetts; and Albany, New York.

For Rio, Zika is not the only health risk potentially increased by longer, rainy summers.

Ratifying the Paris Agreement

In Paris last year, more than 190 countries pledged to hold the global average temperature increase to "well below" 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit that increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius. But keeping within that 1.5 degree Celsius target, The Guardian reports, will be extremely difficult.

An analysis by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of the Marshall Islands--the third country to ratify the Paris Agreement--suggests that the agreement is nearing a critical threshold of pledges and is likely to enter into force this year or in early 2017. The agreement takes effect 30 days after at least 55 countries representing at least 55 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions ratify it. The Marshall Islands analysis indicates 58 countries together representing nearly 54 percent of global emissions have either ratified or pledged to work toward ratification of the Paris Agreement by the end of the year.

So far, 22 nations accounting for 1.08 percent of emissions have formally ratified the deal, according to the United Nations.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

-- 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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Tim Profeta: The Climate Post: Volcanic Eruption Affects Sea Level Rise  
A new study in the journal Scientific Reports suggests that the evidence to pinpoint expected acceleration of sea-level rise due to climate change w...

Read more: Olympics, Climate Change, Environment, Energy, United Nations, Paris Agreement, Zika, Green News

 
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Photos of the Day: Aug. 11, 2016  

Explore the news of the day with these images from around the world.  
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Acosia Red Elk by Christian Heeb  

Acosia Red Elk by Christian Heeb

Native woman Acosia M. Red Elk in historic buckskin dress on top of Paulina Peak, Central Oregon, USA www.heebphoto.com www.ccophoto.com

Christian Heeb: Photos

 
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Stag's Golden Sunrise  

alex saberi posted a photo:

 
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Colors and Shapes of Montreal Metro by TD Tan  

Colors and Shapes of Montreal Metro by TD Tan

Discovering Montreal Metro

TD Tan: Photos

 
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Rio 2016: Photos From Days 4 through 6 (40 photos)  

Hundreds of photographers have gathered in Rio to follow the action in the Olympic arenas, swimming pools, racetracks, and more. Over the next two weeks I'll be featuring some amazing images from recent Olympic events. Today's entry encompasses cycling, archery, volleyball, weightlifting, diving, sailing, judo, a passing capybara, and much more.

 
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Dried Fish by Okan YILMAZ  

Dried Fish by Okan YILMAZ

Copyright by Okan YILMAZ

Okan YILMAZ: Photos

 
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Seven Ways Climate Change Affects Our Health  
Climate change is making heat waves stronger and more frequent, air pollution worse, and allowing vector-borne diseases to expand their range. It's also compromising our drinking water, causing more extreme weather events, and impacting our mental health. And the costs will be great: just this June, the World Health Organization estimated that in the twenty years after 2030, climate change will cause "approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year, from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress."

1. Heatwaves

Thanks to climate change, we're already seeing stronger, longer, and more frequent heatwaves. People -- particularly the very young and very old -- don't cope well with in these conditions. In 2003, some 70,000 people died in the European heat wave, and last summer more than 2,000 perished in India and southwest Asia. But the problems from heat aren't just happening on the other side of the globe. Here in the U.S., people who spend a lot of time outdoors -- farm workers, construction crews, even athletes -- are feeling the effects of warmer days. The Texas Rangers want to build a new billion-dollar stadium with a retractable roof, an expensive feature that owner Ray Davis called "a must to counter the scorching heat in the summer." But most people don't have the resources to spend to adapt to new conditions like that, and so instead will just suffer in the heat.

2. Air Pollution

Air pollution, whether it's the heavy smog that shrouds Los Angeles or the fine dust that burns our lungs in China, isn't causing climate change. But climate change is making air pollution worse! And the stakes are high: air pollution already causes an estimated 7 million premature deaths across the globe each year. Air pollution is made up a variety of things, including ground-level ozone, particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, and carbon monoxide, and when we breathe those in, we get sick. As the planet grows warmer due to climate change, the reactions that form ground-level ozone -- one of the most dangerous things for us to inhale -- happen faster. And climate change also affects our weather patterns. As the earth grows warmer, we're seeing more high-pressure systems. And a high-pressure system stuck over an area can trap local pollution and particulate matter, preventing it from being blown away, and so the area's residents will keep breathing it in.

3. Vector-Borne Diseases

What do zika, chikungunya, dengue, and malaria have in common? They're all vector-borne diseases spread by mosquitos. And insect ranges are often determined by climate. So if climate is changing, that means the geographic extent of many of these diseases will, too. In some cases, a disease could move into a new region where it's never been seen before, like we're seeing in Canada with Lyme disease, a devastating condition that used to be so unusual north of the border, it wasn't even on Health Canada's list of treatable diseases. In other instances, as it gets warmer a disease could move out of its current region -- like our research has shown is likely to be the case for dengue in Texas in the summer. And in yet other cases, a disease could re-emerge in a place where it was eradicated a century ago -- like malaria in Chicago.

4. Water-Borne Diseases

Climate change is also leading to more deaths from diarrhea, which is already the second leading cause of death for kids under five around the world. How is that, you may wonder? Well, a warmer atmosphere speeds up the hydrological cycle, leading to more periods of extreme precipitation. Heavier rainfall often means higher risk of flooding. And flooding -- particularly in nations where drinking water is at risk of being contaminated with garbage, animal manure, and even human waste -- can be deadly. "Runoff from more frequent and intense extreme precipitation events will increasingly compromise sources of drinking water through increased introduction of pathogens and prevalence of toxic algal blooms. As a result, the risk of human exposure to agents of water-related illness will increase," says the 2016 Climate and Health Assessment.

5. Extreme Weather Hazards

Extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, heavy downpours, and flooding, all of which can affect our health and well-being, and we're seeing more of them as the climate changes. These events can harm or even kill us; they can prevent us from getting the medical care we need, turning a trivial concern into a life-threatening illness; and they can sweep away cars, homes, businesses, and harvests. "Earth has always experienced epic storms, debilitating drought, and biblical floods. But lately it seems the treadmill of disruptive weather has been set to fast-forward," writes Paul Douglas, a professional meteorologist and -- like me -- someone whose faith motivates his concern on this issue. Let's zero in one just one type of extreme event: a hurricane. There are all sorts of risks that crop up in the aftermath of a hurricane. If your power goes out and you have to run a generator in your house, you run the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning if you don't set the generator up correctly. Or let's say it's flooding and your car gets swept away and you run the risk of drowning. Thanks to climate change, we're seeing more hurricanes and so are more exposed to these risks.

6. Our Mental Health

Climate change, and the increasing risk of weather extremes that accompanies it, has a direct impact on our mental well-being. "Many people exposed to climate related or weather-related disasters experience stress and serious mental health consequences ... [including] post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and general anxiety," says the 2016 US Climate and Health Assessment. Last year, when I was working with the city of Boulder on climate preparedness, an emergency room doctor told me that extreme weather is one of the biggest challenges they face in counseling people with long-term mental health issues. If a patient misses one appointment due to snow, flooding, or other situations that prevent travel, there is a big chance they will fail to keep their next one, and the next, and their problems -- some of which may have been on the road to recovery -- will resurface in full force. That's not all, though. Sometimes just thinking about climate change can overload us. As the American Psychological Association says, "mental health impacts of actual and perceived climate change include stress, anxiety, apathy, and guilt." When we view climate change as a huge global issue and we are only one human, we can be overwhelmed by fear, anxiety, and despair. But acknowledging those feelings is the first step to dealing with them.

7. Political Instability And Conflict

The seventh and biggest way that climate change affects our health is something you might never have thought about before -- through its impact on the political stability of failing states and nations. These past five years have shown in brutal clarity how a nation like Syria already teetering on the brink -- due to decades of conflict, corruption, and mismanagement of its natural resources -- can be pushed over the edge into disaster. Did climate change cause the Syrian refugee crisis? No. There were many factors at play. Did climate change contribute to it? Yes, it did. As one scientific study concludes, "Human-induced forcing has increased the probability of severe and persistent droughts in this region, and made the occurrence of a 3-year drought as severe as that of 2007−2010 two to three times more likely than by natural variability alone." Climate change increases the risk of conflict in the poor, unstable, and desperate regions of the world. Public health systems collapse, families will be driven into refugee camps, and attempts to flee to safer countries often end in unmitigated disaster and tragedy, with permanent and all too often even fatal impacts on millions of peoples' lives.

So, given all this, why should we care about a changing climate? Because it affects us, our families, our communities, and people everywhere: real people, particularly the poor, the vulnerable, and those who already lack the resources to cope.

-- 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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Redside Dace  

John Jimmo posted a photo:

 
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Therapy and Prevention: The Race to Stop Youth from Radicalizing  
The recent spate of deadly attacks in Germany have highlighted the need to intervene with angry young men before they turn to extremism or violence. But the country has a lot of catching up to do -- and the work can be controversial.  
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Living Off the Electrical Grid in America's Capital  

In the heart of Washington, D.C., Keya Chatterjee and her family live off the energy produced from a single solar panel. It started in 2006, when Chatterjee and her husband had a fight with their electrical company. They were so tired of the astronomical bills that they stopped power to their home and spent the entire winter living without heating or electricity—essentially camping in their own home. After a frigid few months, they installed the solar panel and returned to Pepco, but now they supply energy to the grid rather than using it. Today, Chatterjee's life runs on solar energy, she takes public transportation everywhere, and she's figured out how to live with as little consumption as possible.

 
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In praise of Descartes  
Robert P Crease tackles Steven Weinberg's criticisms of René Descartes  
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In praise of Descartes  
Robert P Crease tackles Steven Weinberg's criticisms of René Descartes  
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Lead in Australia's drinking water is leaching from brass taps  
Tap water in samples from across New South Wales can contain unsafe lead levels, probably down to brass tap fittings  
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Löyly is a public sauna located on the edge of the Baltic Sea in...  

Löyly is a public sauna located on the edge of the Baltic Sea in Helsinki, Finland. The building, constructed with repurposed wood, features a shell-like design that has been described as a “tunturi” - the Finnish word for something in between a hill and a mountain. In total, Finland contains approximately 3.3 million saunas or roughly one per household. This incredible shot was shared with us by Joel Miikka

Instagram: http://bit.ly/2bijyMe

 
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One Helluva Fella: The Horrifically Contemporary World of Hieronymus Bosch  
Impaled heads and burning bodies: Hieronymus Bosch, the great Dutch painter whose images depicted the horrors and terror of the past, present and future, died 500 years ago. In the era of Abu Ghraib and Islamic State, his work feels as contemporary as ever.  
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An Olympic Showdown: Man versus Dolphin  
Can a hot pink dolphin outswim an Olympic champion?

-- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com  
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Empire by maxschreier  

Empire by maxschreier

maxschreier: Photos

 
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How To Weed--These 10 Tips Are All You Need  


The other day, I was driving to work and had to drive around a giant truck spraying herbicide on the side of the highway. OK, I was already in a bad mood, but still, seeing it spraying the weeds with chemicals made me cry. Real tears. Now, imagine if they were doing it the right way--I'd have been slowing down to watch goats... baby goats! And my bad mood would have turned into happy feelings.

I'm one of those people who actually enjoy weeding because after 40 years of doing it, I've learned a few things that make it easier--even meditative. Think about it for a minute: After coming home from a hard day of work, pulling a few weeds can feel really, really good (take THAT, you pesky thistle!). Plus, there is no better way to truly get to know and see up close what's happening in your garden.

The truth is if you don't like GMOs and you don't want them in your food, you have to understand how to manage weeds. Most GMOs exist because farmers "fight" weeds with chemicals instead of with common sense.

Here's some commonsense and weeding advice I've learned along the way.

1. 
   
2. Prevent them in the first place with plants and mulch. Here's the main thing you need to understand about nature: She HATES bare soil. She will bring in the "weeds" to cover up her vulnerable soil skin. So you can either do the planting for her or cover her up with mulch. And mulch will decompose over time, so it must be reapplied. If you're driving past farms and seeing acres and acres of exposed soil that looks all nice and bare and "clean"...well, that is one miserable and unhappy piece of land! If you are a farmer and are wondering what the solution is, check out this info on the Roller Crimper--now, THAT'S a weed solution nature is thrilled with.
   
3. Start early and small. A tiny weed is easier to pick than a giant weed. Stay on top of your weeds by getting them early and often.
   
4. Get your squats in the garden, not in the gym. OK, I used to think this was a gender issue--I rarely see men in America "squatting" down to pick a weed. And I've had a few honest men tell me they can't and won't do it. And yet, I see in Men's Health all the time men going to the gym to do squats. More importantly, in other cultures squatting is just how men (and women) sit all the time. So it's not a true gender issue at all. Think of squatting to pull weeds as the ultimate outdoor Men's Health In fact, you'll accomplish two goals at once: strong glutes and a weed-free garden!
   
5. Use the right tool. Match the job to the best possible size as you would a fountain soda depending on your thirst: small, medium, or large. Small is a kitchen knife for getting into and between cracks; medium is a hori hori knife for getting those usual weeds; and large is a shovel--for getting things for which you need to go deep to get to the roots or that just require that extra help (thistles, for example). My favorite shovel for women is this one: the HERShovel. It has a nice sharp bottom and a ledge for awesome foot leverage.
   
6. Get the roots! Most important lesson here... If you don't "get to the root of the issue," you will never resolve it. Weed-wacking is fine in a pinch when you want to make things look nice quickly (oh, you guys do love your wackers!). However, it won't eliminate the weeds. Only pulling them out by the roots will.
   
7. Sit down and relax. As I've gotten older, this has become my favorite technique. I have a nice blanket that I take out with me into the garden. I spread it out with my trug of tools by my side, and I calmly, methodically, and thoroughly pull weeds. It's relaxing! It's deeply, deeply satisfying. Most of the time, I do this wearing a bikini, FYI. But if it's after work, I'll even do it in my work clothes. And as I clear each area, I just move the blanket.
   
8. Understand what the weed is trying to tell you about your soil. Too many dandelions? You probably have acidic soil. Thistle? Your soil isn't fertile enough--just add compost (and get this one out by the roots because even a small bit of root can re-grow). Get to know your weeds and what they are trying to tell you.
   
9. Plant more. As I said before, if you have bare soil, you're going to have weeds. Plant ground covers. Plant more flowers and bushes. Pack stuff in, and there will be no room left for weeds to grow.
   
10. Don't let your weeds go to seed! Whatever you do, try to get to them before they go to seed. There is an old saying, "One year's seed is seven years of weeds." Even if you just cut the seed head off, you are better off than if you let the weed spread. The only exception I make is with milkweed (which, by the way, is designated as a noxious weed in farm fields, which means farmers can be fined for letting it grow). I let milkweed take over large areas of my garden in hopes of helping the monarch butterflies. And their seeds are those magical floaty things, which are fun to watch blowing through the air. By the way, Native Americans used milkweed fluff as absorbent diaper material for their babies!
    
11. Eat them. Lots of weeds are edible! Mustards, burdock, pigweed, dandelion, and purslane, to name a few. Get a good book that identifies weeds in your region and start enjoying! Remember, thousands of years ago people used to eat that way all the time.
    

The other thing to remember is that sometimes weeds are not weeds, but free plants. I often find lavender, Japanese maple trees, and other flowers and vegetables that have taken root in some surprising place in my garden. I almost always let them grow. After all, they have chosen that location as their home, which means they will be happy there.

For more from Maria Rodale, visit www.mariasfarmcountrykitchen.com

-- 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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Excellent #olympics  

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Henry Gorringe Scientist of the Day Henry Honeychurch...  











https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Cleopatra%27s_Needle_(New_York_City)#/media/File:USA-NYC-Central_Park-Cleopatra%27s_Needle5.jpg


http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pv&GRid=6926925&PIpi=357812

Henry Gorringe Scientist of the Day

Henry Honeychurch Gorringe, an American naval officer, was born Aug. 11, 1841.  

read more…

 
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/11/science/perseid-meteor-shower-2016.html?partner=rss&emc=rss  
Trilobites: Get Ready for the Perseids Meteor Shower: ‘It Will Rival the Stars in the Sky.'  
As many as 200 meteors per hour will ignite in the Earth's atmosphere during the peak on Thursday night and Friday morning. Here's how to catch the show.  
astronomy  

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/11/world/what-in-the-world/andes-incas-chuno.html?partner=rss&emc=rss  
What in the World: A Space-Age Food Product Cultivated by the Incas  
Astronauts need lightweight, long-lasting provisions for hazardous trips. So did the Incas, and villagers in the Andes have made their version for centuries.  
astronomy  

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How Sunscreen Prevents Wrinkles (and Cancer)  

One in five of us will get skin cancer in our lifetime. For some, the idea of preventing wrinkles is a more powerful behavioral motivator than preventing cancer. In this “Ask Jim” episode of If Our Bodies Could Talk, senior editor James Hamblin answers a reader question about wrinkling skin and breaks down the psychology of SPF.

This video is part of a new interactive feature where we respond to viewers' questions. Write to askjim@theatlantic.com.

 
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We used to wait by Alessio Albi  

We used to wait by Alessio Albi

Model: Elsa Facchin

Alessio Albi: Photos

 
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Robot-Like Machines Helped People With Spinal Injuries Regain Function  

Eight people with serious spinal injuries who practiced hours of interaction with wearable machines for months regained lost feeling and some ability to move.

 
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Nobody expects... a surprise haemorrhoid operation  

Our chief weapon is: unquestioningly dropping trou

Decades of authoritarian one party rule have perhaps reduced one man's ability to question authority as a Chinese bloke awaiting the birth of his child was erroneously whisked in for a haemorrhoidectomy.…

 
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Idiot flies drone alongside Flybe jet landing at Newquay Airport  

Cops are hunting for the errant remote control pilot

A drone was involved in a near-miss with a Flybe passenger flight on approach to Newquay Airport on Tuesday, putting the aircraft's 62 passengers and crew at risk.…

 
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The Last Days Of The Mekong Snake Hunters  
...e Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species in 1994....  
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First Americans must have arrived by sea, not via Alaska  
A study of prehistoric DNA has challenged the established theory that says people first reached the Americas via a land bridge in the Arctic  
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Microbes that laugh at antibiotics: UK sinks £4.5m into China-Brit kill team  

Will team up to defeat drug resistant critters

British research councils are attempting to tackle the rising problem of microbial resistance by pumping £4.5m into six research partnerships between the UK and China.…

 
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Expert on MH370 Disappearance: 'There Is Absolutely Mystery To WHat Happened'  
Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 mysteriously disappeared from radar screens just over two years ago. Now veteran flight-accident investigator Larry Vance believes he knows what happened. He believes one of the pilots hijacked the aircraft.  
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http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2016/08/11/microsofts-golden-key-leak-illustrates-why-governments-should-stop-asking-for-backdoors/  
Microsoft's Golden Key leak illustrates why governments should stop asking for backdoors  

Security researchers MY123 and Slipstream revealed this week that Microsoft accidentally leaked security keys that allow Windows-based computers, phones and tablets to be unlocked and loaded with other operating systems, as well as malicious software like rootkits. While the company has attempted to patch Windows to fix this, the researchers believe that it'd be impossible for Microsoft to render the leaked keys useless. It isn't clear just how much of a security risk this poses for users: It appears that one would need to physically access the target device to use the key and install other software on it. However,…

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http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/08/11/pot-meet-kettle-adblock-plus-calls-out-facebook-for-being-anti-user/  
Pot, meet kettle: Adblock Plus calls out Facebook for being ‘anti-user'  

Adblock Plus isn't taking the news of Facebook's decision to circumvent ad-blockers all that well. Today, the popular browser extension called the move ‘anti-user' and claims it ‘takes a dark path against user choice.' Wait, is this the same company that got caught taking payments (of $250,000 to $1 million) to put advertisers on a white list? In case you don't live online I'll go ahead and answer: yes, it was. In fact, the Interactive Advertising Bureau chief, Randall Rothenberg once called Adblock Plus: “an unethical, immoral, mendacious coven of techie wannabes.” Harsh as it may sound, the criticism is warranted.…

This story continues at The Next Web  
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http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/08/10/an-easy-to-find-15-piece-of-hardware-is-all-it-takes-to-hack-a-voting-machine/  
An easy-to-find $15 piece of hardware is all it takes to hack a voting machine  

In the US, approximately 70 percent of states use some form of electronic voting. Hacks on these voting machines have been detailed for years, but a CBS report shows that it doesn't exactly require a security expert to hack the vote. To hack a voting machine, it appears, all you need is a $15 card that you can find in a number of places online. “I can insert it, and then it resets the card, and now I'm able to vote again,” said Brian Varner, a principle researcher at Symantec. “For $15 and in-depth knowledge of the card, you could hack…

This story continues at The Next Web  
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http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/a-black-hole-story-told-by-a-cosmic-blob-and-bubble.html  
A Black Hole Story Told by a Cosmic Blob and Bubble  
Two cosmic structures show evidence for a remarkable change in behavior of a supermassive black hole in a distant galaxy.  
astronomy  

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http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/08/10/robot-helping-photographers-take-perfect-underwater-shot-olympics/  
How a robot is helping photographers take the perfect underwater shot at the Olympics  

There's a majestic quality about underwater photography that is incredible to look at, especially out of this year's Olympics games in Rio. To capture the moment, Getty Images is employing the help of a robot to guide them to the perfect shot. Sports photographer Al Bello has shot 11 Olympic games, but 2016 is the first year he's using a robot to help photograph aquatic events, including swimming, diving, and synchronized diving. Traditionally, photographers would set up a static remote camera and push the trigger when they're ready to take the shot. This required framing the image ahead of time and…

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http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/08/10/no-mans-sky-is-here-and-its-unlike-anything-youve-ever-played/  
‘No Man's Sky' is here, and it's unlike anything you've ever played  

After nearly 24 hours with one of the most anticipated titles of 2016, ‘No Man's Sky,' I can confidently say I know nothing. In a game built with this sort of massive scale, knowing nothing is the inevitable starting point. With each step you take, the chance you're discovering something previously unseen by others is always relatively high. The chances of discovering something your character has never seen is a near certainty. This is all accomplished through a technique called ‘procedural generation,' which is basically an algorithm that draws the map as you move through it. As such, the potential for scale is…

This story continues at The Next Web  
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https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/8-14-august-2016/moves-changes-industry-news/  
Moves & Changes industry news  

People

After serving as design director at AKQA's London office, Carlos Matias has been appointed as international design director. The role is based in New York, and Matias will oversee design and branding practices across the consultancy's offices in the US and Europe.

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Nelly Ben Hayoun has been announced as an advisor to the United Nations Virtual Reality Lab, which is based in New York and headed up by Gabo Arora. In her role she will advise the team, engage diplomats and the public through events and talk series at the United Nations headquarters.

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Richard Wilshire has joined Fjord, which is part of Accenture Interactive, as regional design director. Based in the London studio, he will be developing the company's digital product design and development offering.

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CloudTag has appointed Peter Griffith as chief creative officer. Griffith, who has previously worked on the creative teams at Nokia and Microsoft, will oversee the design, aesthetics and brand messaging of CloudTag's products.

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Los Angeles-based hospitality company, Sbe, has appointed Michele Caniato as its chief brand officer. Caniato will be based in its New York office and will focus on brand and image development, as well as marketing, design and advertising.

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BrandOpus has promoted Leo Hadden from strategy director to board director. Hadden started out as account executive at the consultancy in 2007, shortly after it was founded, and moved to the strategy department in 2015.

Consultancies

As Pearlfisher announces its new San Francisco office, it has appointed Brian Steele to head up the newly established West Coast team as creative director.

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The Creatives Industries Federation has moved from its old office on 90 Long Acre to a new headquarters just down the road on 22 Endell Street in Covent Garden, London.

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Trunk has moved from its offices in Brixton, London to a new site in Elephant & Castle. The studio's new address is Studio 15, 0 Building, 83 Crampton St, London, SE17 3BQ.

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WPP has announced that J. Walter Thompson Company its marketing communications consultancy has agreed to acquire iStrategyLabs, a digital consultancy, in the US.

The post Moves & Changes industry news appeared first on Design Week.

 
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You can now write to President Obama via a White House Messenger bot  

Long gone are the days of sending your favorite role models fan mails in the post. Aside from tweeting them, now you can send a message to the White House via Facebook Messenger. Messenger's VP of Product David Marcus announced a White House bot today on his Facebook page; the bot lets you send a note to the President anything from compliments, critiques, or questions. President Obama currently reads 10 of these select messages every night, but that includes traditional notes as well. The White House's Chief Digital Officer Jason Goldman says the move aims to open up opportunities for people to reach the President. It's the…

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This is how Google will keep morons from ruining your VR experience  

Trolls gonna troll, no matter whether it's in the comment section of a blog post or a VR environment. As more people begin to experience virtual reality through smartphones and high-end gear like the Oculus Rift, Google has begun developing some ways to dissuade people from messing with others in VR. The company's Daydream Labs worries that some people in their efforts to test the limits of the medium will try to interfere with others' virtual experiences. In an experiment featuring a simulated clothing store environment, some users blocked others' view by placing hats in front of their…

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http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/08/10/denuvos-uncrackable-anti-piracy-solution-for-games-has-been-thwarted/  
Pirates finally thwart uncrackable anti-tamper tech for games  

For a while now, German firm Denuvo has been successful in its business of preventing piracy of video games, thanks to its anti-tamper technology that makes it difficult to tweak files and play them without a licence. However, it looks like its clean streak has finally come to an end. TorrentFreak reports that a Bulgarian hacker known as Voksi discovered a way to bypass Denuvo's tech and play pirated copies of games like Doom and Just Cause 3, which are distributed through Steam. However, that loophole was soon closed. Now, a pirate group called CONSPIR4CY has managed to fully crack…

This story continues at The Next Web  
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https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/8-14-august-2016/design-manchester-reveals-design-city-theme/  
Design Manchester reveals “Design City” theme  

Design Manchester has revealed its lineup, which includes talks from the likes of educationalist Sir Christopher Frayling, designer Jason Bruges and an exhibition on the work of Alan Kitching.

The theme Design City will tie everything together this year and co-curator Malcolm Garrett says the festival will look at the “key concerns of living in modern cities, environmental issues, the devolution of power to Northern cities, what's going on in Manchester itself and the wider cultural agenda.”

“Speaking to other disciplines”

Garrett also says that he doesn't want the festival to be about “graphic designers talking to graphic designers” and so to this end he adds: “We're going to speak to other disciplines  architecture, wayfinding, design for aging, production design, user experience, virtual & interaction design and animation.”

Architect-cum-lighting and experience designer Jason Bruges will be talking about his work in the context of the city theme. “His work gives both a public and commercial perspective of the city,” says Garrett.

This year's event also looks at how the design agenda in cities is being driven by a new generation of design savvy consumers and the growing demand for craft in everything from beer packaging and branding to printing.

“We'll be extending this idea of craft to the public through our workshops and it will also relate to the broader themes of the city,” says Garrett.

A Design City film season is planned and will feature Writer Alice Rawsthorn talking about how Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo is greatly enhanced by Saul Bass' title sequence.

Frayling on Ken Adam

Meanwhile Christopher Frayling will talk about the film Dr Strangelove and what he sees as the “gleaming and sinister” production design of Ken Adam.

Alan Kitching: A Life in Letterpress is an exhibition billed as celebrating “one of the World's foremost practitioners of letterpress, typographic design and printmaking.”

The exhibition gives an insight into Kitching's works, his methodology and processes. Sketches, proofs and roughs are on display as well as artefacts and equipment from his workshop.

The exhibition was at Somerset House earlier in the year and there is an accompanying book.

Design City Fair will take place on 15 and 16 October and features stalls from over 100 creatives with affordable work for sale alongside live art, workshops for screen-printing, letterpress and book-binding among other classes. It's free and billed as a family friendly event. Names include Manchester Print Fair, Hotbed Press and Manchester Artists Book Fair.

Women in Print will being together local designers, print-makers and illustrators to celebrate the women who made Manchester great. This includes everyone from political reformers to paleobotanists.

Art Battle Manchester VIII is scheduled for 14 October at London Road Fire Station where illustrators, painters, tattooists and street artists will go toe-to-toe in what organisers predict to be “the city's most energetic art event.”

A 500 capacity crowd votes in rounds as ten artists take each other on to create a final piece in less than 30 minutes.

The Great Debate

Garrett hopes that the Design City theme will “feel definitive” and “embrace different creative endeavours” this year.

One talk still being mapped out is The Great Debate, but Garrett says that it will look at the future concerns of how cities are developing and the role design plays. Garrett says that there are at least 20 more festival announcements to come.

Design Manchester 2016 runs from 12-23 October at various venues across Manchester. Head here for information.

The post Design Manchester reveals “Design City” theme appeared first on Design Week.

 
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How climate change will hurt humanity's closest cousins  
The consequences of climate change are an increasing concern for humans around the world. How will we cope with rising sea levels and climbing temperatures? But it's not just humans who will be affected by these worldwide shifts -- it's our closest cousins, too: monkeys, apes and lemurs.  
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Unraveling the jaw-dropping goblin shark  
Scientists have revealed goblin sharks' 'slingshot feeding' mechanism, which involves high-speed protrusion of their jaws. Goblin sharks have revealed a remarkable biting mechanism, named 'slingshot feeding,' which involves high-speed manipulation of the species' highly protrusible jaws.  
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Metal-oxidizing bacteria from a gold mine  

Full Text:

This is a microscopic photo of metal-oxidizing bacteria found in biofilm samples taken from a South African gold mine. The samples were taken by participants of the University of Tennessee's Biogeochemical Educational Experiences -- South Africa, a Research Experiences for Undergraduates program. South African mines, particularly the deep gold mines, have been selected for study because they provide relatively easy access to deep fissure waters and the rocks that host them. Since these mines are some of the deepest excavations in the world, they increase the possibility of uncontaminated studies of earlier evolution.

Image credit: Courtesy University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and University of the Free State, South Africa's Research Experiences for Undergraduates program

 
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Volcanic eruption masked acceleration in sea-level rise  

Full Text:

The cataclysmic 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines masked the full impact of greenhouse gases on accelerating sea-level rise, according to a new study. Satellite observations of the ocean surface, which began in 1993, indicated the rate of sea-level rise was holding fairly steady at about 3 millimeters per year. As the pace of warming oceans and melting glaciers and ice sheets accelerated, scientists expected to see a corresponding increase in the rate of sea-level rise. Analysis of the satellite record has not borne that out, however. Researchers have now determined that the expected increase in sea-level rise due to climate change was likely hidden because of a happenstance of timing: Pinatubo erupted in 1991, two years before the first satellite observations of the ocean began. The eruption, which temporarily cooled the planet, caused sea-levels to drop and effectively distorted calculations of sea-level rise in subsequent decades.

Image credit: USGS

 
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Help Save This Secret Garden In The West End  
 

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http://www.designboom.com/art/prism-design-sugarlady-popup-store-shanghai-08-11-2016/  
prism design construct boutique sugarlady pop-up store in shanghai  

geometric structures containing boutique garments were dotted underneath the upper level, allowing shoppers to witness the lit-up display below.

The post prism design construct boutique sugarlady pop-up store in shanghai appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

 
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http://www.designboom.com/art/tundra-collective-my-whale-inner-revision-d-museum-seoul-08-10-2016/  
tundra's immersive light installation puts visitors side-by-side a swimming whale  

the artists have infilled the D museum in seoul with an interactive installation made up of thousands of luminous hexagonal cells.

The post tundra's immersive light installation puts visitors side-by-side a swimming whale appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

 
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https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/aug/10/balloon-art-masayoshi-matsumoto-jeff-koons  
Pop goes balloon art: why Bill Clinton isn't its only grown-up fan  

Balloons injected much-needed joy into the US presidential campaign this month and artists are co-opting the old tricks of the party entertainer too

Masayoshi Matsumoto's balloon animals are just like the ones you'll remember from your childhood, only on steroids.

Related: Inflated expectations: Masayoshi Matsumoto's balloon animals in pictures

I just want someone who thinks of me the way Bill Clinton thinks of balloons. pic.twitter.com/nc7M5X33Gx

Related: Party's over: the end of helium balloons

Continue reading...  
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http://www.designboom.com/art/vernie-squid-installation-moradavaga-walktalk-sao-miguel-08-10-2016/  
vernie the giant squid installation by moradavaga takes part in walk&talk festival in são miguel  

individual pipes extend from the installation, winding round different objects and areas of the park.

The post vernie the giant squid installation by moradavaga takes part in walk&talk festival in são miguel appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

 
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http://www.designboom.com/art/qingjian-meng-gold-rush-19th-century-characters-modern-technology-08-10-2016/  
time periods collide when these 19th-century figures toy with modern technology  

the images form an unexpected collision of time periods and chronological inconsistencies.

The post time periods collide when these 19th-century figures toy with modern technology appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

 
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http://www.designboom.com/art/manuel-alvarez-diestro-seoul-bridges-photo-series-08-10-2016/  
manuel alvarez diestro's seoul bridges photographic series  

as seoul's population continues to rise so do the number of bridges that cross the han river, the iconic waterway that intersects the city.

The post manuel alvarez diestro's seoul bridges photographic series appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

 
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https://www.pinterest.com/pin/354095589435846793/  
Leafhopper (Hebeceph  

Leafhopper (Hebecephalus sp.) collected in Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan, Canada, and photographed at the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics (sample ID: BIOUG20896-D08; specimen record: http://www.boldsystems.org/index.php/Public_RecordView?processid=CNGSC3084-15; BIN: http://www.boldsystems.org/index.php/Public_BarcodeCluster?clusteruri=BOLD:ACU5902)

 
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Smithsonian touring  
Smithsonian touring exhibition at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair (© Bygone Collection/Alamy) 2016-08-10 [www.bing.com/search]  
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soyons-suave  
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Daily Design Inspira  
Daily Design Inspiration | Abduzeedo  
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https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/aug/11/glenn-murcutt-touch-the-earth-lightly-with-your-housing-footprint  
Glenn Murcutt: touch the Earth lightly with your housing footprint  

Acclaimed architect whose Melbourne mosque project has rejected traditional elements says he ‘would die' if he had to live in an outer suburban housing estate

Glenn Murcutt has urged Australian developers to stop the urban sprawl, saying he “would die” if he had to live in an outer suburban housing estate.

The internationally acclaimed Australian architect is famous for sensitive, sustainable designs that work with the landscape; designs like the the open-cave structure and simple sloping roof of the Simpson-Lee house, or the butterflied roof of the Magney house.

Related: On your marks: is Rio's Olympic architecture a success or failure?

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Rudolph De Harak  
Rudolph De Harak  
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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/nybooks/~3/hj5qCTzK5Ao/  
The Great American Cubist  
Stuart Davis, the only first-class Cubist to emerge from North America, concentrated single-mindedly on making art quiver with the energy he perceived around him, “jazzing up” details of the American Scene, in particular its stereotypical attributes, advertising hieroglyphics, and verbal colloquialisms. The core of the exhibition of his work, now at the Whitney, shows Davis applying his methodology to easel paintings of varying sizes—including small, amazingly intricate jigsaw-puzzle compositions.  
culture  

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The Drone Presidency  
Obama has now been at war longer than any other American president, and has overseen the use of military force in seven countries—Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, and Somalia. In the latter four countries, virtually all the force has come in the form of unmanned drones executing suspected terrorists said to be linked to al-Qaeda or its “associated forces.” That an antiwar president has found the drone so tempting ought to be a warning sign.  
culture  

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheDailyGalaxyNewsFromPlanetEarthBeyond/~3/EVYZ-7nt0x8/cassini-flyby-of-saturns-titan-reveals-earth-like-features.html  
Cassini Flyby of Saturn's Titan Reveals Strikingly Earth-like Features  
 
astronomy  

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Portugal's Madeira Island Fire Raging  

NASA Goddard Photo and Video posted a photo:

Smoke from several large fires burning on Portugal's Madeira Island were seen blowing over the Atlantic Ocean on Aug. 10 when NASA's Terra satellite passed overhead.

Madeira is an archipelago of four islands located off the northwest coast of Africa. They are an autonomous region of Portugal.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite captured this natural-color image at 8:25 a.m. EDT (12:05 UTC). Places where MODIS detected active fire are located in red.

Image Credit: NASA Goddard's Rapid Response Team, Jeff Schmaltz

NASA image use policy.

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA's mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA's accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency's mission.

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astronomy  

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NASA/Kepler-Mission Mystery: "Unknown Forces at Work" -- 'Alien-Megastructure' Star Decreasing in Brightness At Unprecedented Rate  
 
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Follow instructions  

europeanspaceagency posted a photo:

The life of an astronaut in space consists of following many step-by-step procedures. We've all wished we had an extra arm when following the instructions to self-assembly furniture and for astronauts it is no different except their procedures, instructions and hardware are more complex as well as their lives often depending on following the instructions correctly.

ESA has developed a system that improves on the basic step-by-step procedures used on the International Space Station that are displayed on a computer. The current system requires constant floating back and forth from the computer to the workplace to check the next step, and mission control cannot easily follow progress.

The mobile procedure viewer or ‘mobiPV' is a wearable system that displays each step in a task, synchronises between the astronaut, ground control and third parties, automatically logs steps and communication and allows for video conferencing, note-taking and text chat.

In this image, ESA's Matthias Maurer is testing the system during a simulated space mission 20 m underwater off the coast of Florida, USA, during NASA's Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO).

The main part of the equipment is the smartphone and camera on a 3D-printed wrist-band. mobiPV can display the procedure on a separate tablet to see more information. Here Matthias has connected a third device for testing all three screens are synchronised.

Versions of mobiPV have been tested during NEEMO before and even in space during ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen's ‘iriss' mission last year. This version, branded mobiPV++, uses a redesigned system and tests the device without a head-mounted display.

The NEEMO crew used mobiPV to run a new way of sampling water that shows promise for use on the International Space Station, called Aquapad. The procedure was displayed on the tablet with ground control following from the coast and the mobiPV team watching from ESTEC, ESA's technical heart in the Netherlands. The astronauts and NEEMO crew were very positive with the results.

The mobiPV team is continuing to refine the system and hope to have a second test on the International Space Station with ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet during his six-month Proxima mission starting later this year.

Credit: NASA

 
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Black Holes Hiding in the Milky Way's Halo? --"Survivors from the Beginning of the Universe"  
 
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https://www.theguardian.com/science/across-the-universe/2016/aug/10/this-weeks-perseid-meteor-shower-could-be-best-in-years-for-northern-hemisphere-viewers  
This week's Perseid meteor shower could be best in years for northern hemisphere viewers  

Up to 200 Perseid meteors per hour could blaze across the northern hemisphere sky in the early hours of Friday morning. Here's what they are and how to see them

Night owls in the northern hemisphere could be in for a treat this Thursday night/Friday morning. The annual Perseid meteor shower reaches its peak on the night of 1112 August, and this year it is predicted to give double its usual rate of meteors.

Up to 200 shooting stars per hour could be seen under perfect conditions, according to Bill Cooke of Nasa's Meteoroid Environments Office in Huntsville, Alabama. The International Meteor Organization goes as far as wondering whether this week's spectacle is going to be “the best in years”. The optimism is being driven by two reasons.

Related: Perseid meteor shower in pictures

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Dinosaur-surviving mammal endangered by stray dogs  

Research shows the solenodon evolved more than 70 million years ago in time to hang out with dinosaurs. But today these unique mammals face a barrage of threats including stray dogs, feral cats, invasive mongoose and deforestation.

If there was any justice in the animal kingdom any at all the solenodon would be as famous as the tiger. The solenodon is a rabbit-sized, shrew-like mammal that is only found on two Caribbean islands: Cuba and Hispaniola (the Dominican Republic and Haiti).

There are a whole slew of reasons why the solenodon's star should rise, including the facts that it's one of the only venomous mammals and David Attenborough really likes it. But, most of all, the solenodon should be famous because it somehow survived the asteroid collision that killed off the dinosaurs, not to mention the next 66 million years of other catastrophes, from Ice Ages to the rise of bipedal destroyers named Homo Sapiens.

It's truly remarkable that the solenodons survived this direct hit, whilst global ecosystems collapsed around them.

I cannot explain what I felt the first time I touched it.

Related: How humans are driving the sixth mass extinction

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Breakthrough in combating malaria with odor-baited trap for mosquitoes  
The use of a newly-developed mosquito trap incorporating human odor has resulted in a 70 percent decline in the population of the most significant malaria mosquito on the Kenyan island of Rusinga. After the introduction of the odor-baited traps on the island the proportion of people with malaria was 30 percent lower among those living in houses with a trap compared to people living in houses who were yet to receive a trap.  
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Stress bites! Researchers study mosquito/bird interactions  
When researchers investigated how the stress hormone, corticosterone, affects how birds cope with West Nile virus, they found that birds with higher levels of stress hormone were twice as likely to be bitten by mosquitoes that transmit the virus. Their studies have implications for the transmission of other viruses such Eastern Equine Encephalitis, and perhaps even Zika, both known to be carried by the kind of mosquitoes used in this study.  
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https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160809145123.htm  
1967 solar storm nearly took US to brink of war  
A solar storm that jammed radar and radio communications at the height of the Cold War could have led to a disastrous military conflict if not for the US Air Force's budding efforts to monitor the sun's activity, a new study finds.  
technology  

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https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160810104412.htm  
Discovery of a time-resolved supernova signal in Earth's microfossils  
Physicists have succeeded in detecting a time-resolved supernova signal in the Earth's microfossil record. As the group shows, the supernova signal was first detectable at a time starting about 2.7 million years ago. According to the researcher's analyses, our solar system spent one million years to transit trough the remnants of a supernova.  
astronomy  

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https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160810084622.htm  
Stellar lab in Sagittarius  
The small smattering of bright blue stars in a new ESO image is the perfect cosmic laboratory in which to study the life and death of stars. Known as Messier 18 this star cluster contains stars that formed together from the same massive cloud of gas and dust.  
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Seventeen Objects for 170 Years (Happy Birthday to us!)  

With over 138 million collection objects, 2.1 million library volumes, and 137,000 cubic feet of archives, the stories of how our collections have made their way to the Smithsonian are almost as varied as the collections themselves. From a tiny mosquito to a space shuttle, we've seen, and moved, it all. This is an ode to all the collectors and movers that have made the Smithsonian what it is today.

1. Finding Buddha

Due to China's political unrest in the 1920s-30s, the Freer Gallery's associate curator of archaeology, Carl Whiting Bishop, had to stop his excavations on archaeological sites in the Shanxi Province. Instead, he kept busy improving his Chinese and searching for artifacts to add the Freer's new building. One such addition was a headless stone Buddha purchased for 4,800 Mexican silver dollars that continues to tell stories today.

2. Atomic Ark

In 1946 under the name Operation Crossroads, the U.S. government exploded two atomic bombs at the Bikini Atoll. Two Smithsonian scientists were assigned to the mission to evaluate the environmental impact of the atomic bombs. To assess the risk of radiation to humans, government employees placed several animals on ships near the island. The lone survivor, Pig 311, was found swimming for shore. In 1949, the Smithsonian was once again reminded of Operation Crossroads when Pig 311 was sent to the National Zoo to live out the rest of her days.

3, 4. Mysterious brown-paper packages

On November 8, 1958, one of the most famous gems in the world was mailed by U.S. Postal Service, in a plain brown paper package, for $145.29 to the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History: the Hope Diamond. An instant star, the 45.52 carat diamond has only left the Smithsonian four times since its arrival. And we love the story so much, the package became part of the collections of our National Postal Museum!  (Bonus: learn more about the curse of the Hope Diamond from Smithsonian Provost Richard Kurin!)

5. Moving day for George

On September 6, 1962, the Horatio Greenough statue of George Washington was moved from the Smithsonian's Castle to the partially complete Museum of History and Technology (now the National Museum of American History) in order to fit it inside before finishing the walls.  While the distance between the two buildings is less than a half-mile, it took a lot of workso much so that it remains there today!

6. A rocket ruckus

Perhaps alarming to some visitors, the Smithsonian displayed rockets outside its Arts & Industries Building (1950s-1974) before our National Air and Space Museum (NASM) was built. The rockets came down in November 1974 and into the new museum, but many people have fond memories of this eye-catching attraction on the National Mall.

7. Patience breeds a National Gallery of Art…

In 1887, our third Secretary Samuel Pierpont Langley declared that the Smithsonian “should act for the nation in the matter of Art.” He retrieved some of the paintings our first Secretary and physicist, Joseph Henry (who was generally uninterested in building an art collection or museum), loaned to our neighbors, the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the Library of Congress. Langley also took interest in the art collection of Harriet Lane Johnston, niece of President James Buchanan, who died in 1903.  Unfortunately, Johnston bequeathed the collection to the Corcoran, but a clause in her will stipulated that the collection would ultimately go to a national art gallery in the Nation's Capitol. Fortunately, the Corcoran turned it down and the collection became ours in 1906 to found the National Gallery of Art, now the Smithsonian American Art Museum

8. Collecting voices

The Smithsonian's Anacostia Community Museum resides in Washington D.C.'s historic African American neighborhood, and seeks to enhance understanding of contemporary urban issues both locally and across the country. Their Community Documentation Initiative makes historic data and materials available to the community, and it includes a large trove of oral histories that bring this important neighborhood to life. There are descriptions for over 160 of them online.

9. Make it two Renwicks!

Not satisfied with just one Renwick building (our Castle), we acquired our second in 1966. Originally built to show Europe that America was sophisticated enough to have art (and to house the art collection of native-Washingtonian and banker William Wilson Corcoran), it was the first building built in America expressly for the display of art. In the 1950s, as it became increasingly dilapidated, Congress recommended razing it. Despite calling it a “Victorian horror,” First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy launched a successful campaign to save it. In 1965, we asked to take over the building and Smithsonian American Art Gallery's Renwick Gallery of contemporary craft and decorative art was born.

10. The sky is falling! Wait, is that a statue?

When Joseph Hirshhorn gave in to the persistent wooing of President Lyndon Johnston and his wife, Lady Bird, and Smithsonian's then Secretary, S. Dillon Ripley, he agreed to donate his collection in 1966 to found a national museum of contemporary art. The question then became how to move the over 12,000 artworks, including rather large sculptures, from his home in Greenwich, Connecticut, to the National Mall in Washington D.C.? One word: helicopter.

11. It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a space shuttle?!

Not to be outdone by the Hirshhorn sculpture helicopter drop, NASM's Udvar Hazy Center near Dulles Airport received the Space Shuttle Discovery in 2012 after it flew across the National Mall in Washington D.C., delighting government workers and tourists alike.

12. Portraits of U.S. Presidents (…and people who play them on TV)

In a stupendous blurring of fact and fiction, the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery's Director, Kim Sajet, played herself on the the Netflix show, House of Cards, to receive the “presidential” portrait of Francis J. Underwood into the collection. Painted by notable portrait artist, Jonathan Yeo, the painting is 6 feet by 6 feet and looms as large as Kevin Spacey's depiction of the conniving and sinister Underwood. To complete the storyline, Underwood himself is quoted in the press release as saying, “I'm pleased that the Smithsonian continues to prove itself as a worthwhile institution. I'm one step closer to convincing the rest of the country that I am the President.” It give me shivers.

13. It takes a community

How do you preserve African American history? One neighborhood at a time. The National Museum of African American History and Culture is visiting major cities around the country to help preserve family photographs and documents, military uniforms, quilts, and more with their Save Our African American Treasures program.

14. Not your average moving day

The Smithsonian Institution Archives keeps collections related to the history of the Smithsonian; its people, buildings, and events. One such collection is the papers of Warren M. Robbins, the man behind the Museum of African Art that was transferred to the Smithsonian by Congress in 1978 (now the National Museum of African Art). The 109 boxes of correspondence, photos, and memorabilia were picked up from a Capitol Hill row house in 2011, and are a testament to Robbins' passion for the African cultures that inspired him to found the museum.

15. “Collecting Bytes” or “Taking a Byte”

How does one collect an iPad app written for iOS 4.3? It was a challenge fitting to our National Design Museum, the Cooper Hewitt, who in 2013 added its first piece of software code to the collection. Learn more about how they are using open source methodologies to preserve this alternative music browser, Planetary, for generations to come.

16. Drumming to eternity

During the Iraq War, on September 17 and 18, 2004, American Indian members of the U.S. Army's 120th Engineer Combat Battalion held an Inter-Tribal Powwow at Al Taqaddum Air Base in Iraq. For the Powwow, the soldiers fashioned a ceremonial drum from a 55-gallon oil drum that was cut in half and covered with canvas from a sleeping cot. The drum was donated to our National Museum of American Indian by battalion members and their chaplain, Sergeant Debra K. Mooney (Choctaw), in 2005.

17. Ready for an 1850 close-up

Finally, it's only fitting to end with a unique look at one of the Smithsonian's first treasures—our Castle. Though the Castle (which has housed exhibits, collections, and even our first Secretary!) was not completely finished until 1855, this photo was taken in the summer of 1850, while building was still underway. It is the earliest photo ever taken of the Smithsonian Castle, and the only photo of it under construction. And where did this rare photo come from? It was uncovered at a Washington D.C. Antique Photo and Postcard Show in the spring of 2015!

Want an extra birthday surprise?

Head over to the Smithsonian Transcription Center, where you can see firsthand how museums like the National Air and Space Museum and the Smithsonian American Art Museum were organized (plus a look at the development of the Hope Diamond exhibition), and help transcribe!

 

The post Seventeen Objects for 170 Years (Happy Birthday to us!) appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

 
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French grande for LA KERMESSE ROUGE aka THE SCARLET BAZAAR (Paul...  

French grande for LA KERMESSE ROUGE aka THE SCARLET BAZAAR (Paul Mesnier, France, 1947)

Designer: Bernard Lancy

Poster source: Eat Brie

“Agnès Bonnardet leaves her parents to marry Claude Sironi, a painter who becomes famous but loses his talent. Meanwhile Agnes acquires a style of her own as an artist, which makes Claude jealous of his young wife. One day, he sends one of his own paintings to the Bazar de la Charité, a very trendy Paris department store, instead of one of his wife's works as ordered. Afraid of her being mad at him, he locks her up in the cloak room. A dreadful fire suddenly breaks out and sets the building ablaze.” IMDb

 
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CITES: list the WHITE RHINO, AFRICAN ELEPHANT and LION as ENDANGERED SPECIES UNDER APPENDIX I in 2016 https://t.co/0Ti0Z96aK6 
https://t.co/0Ti0Z96aK6 

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Many endangered species face long waits for protection  
The Endangered Species Act was enacted by Congress in 1973 to protect species threatened with extinction. To receive protection, a species must first be listed as endangered or threatened. A two-year timeline for the process was established in 1982 by a Congressional amendment to the ESA. Researchers found that many species are encountering much longer wait times. They believe that delays could lead to less global biodiversity.  
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Managing climate change refugia to protect wildlife  
Natural and cultural areas that will remain similar to what they are today -- despite climate change -- need to be identified, managed and conserved as 'refugia' for at-risk species, according to a new study. The study sets out, for the first time, specific steps to help identify and manage these more resilient and climate-stable havens for plants, animals and fishes.  
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New analysis shows threats to 8,000 Red List species  
Less than a month away from the kick-off the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Hawaii, a team of scientists reports that three quarters of the world's threatened species are imperiled because people are converting their habitat into agricultural lands and over-harvesting their populations.  
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How climate change will hurt humanity's closest cousins  
The consequences of climate change are an increasing concern for humans around the world. How will we cope with rising sea levels and climbing temperatures? But it's not just humans who will be affected by these worldwide shifts -- it's our closest cousins, too: monkeys, apes and lemurs.  
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Unraveling the jaw-dropping goblin shark  
Scientists have revealed goblin sharks' 'slingshot feeding' mechanism, which involves high-speed protrusion of their jaws. Goblin sharks have revealed a remarkable biting mechanism, named 'slingshot feeding,' which involves high-speed manipulation of the species' highly protrusible jaws.  
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Galápagos faces first-ever bird extinction  
Scientists have discovered a new species of colorful songbird in the Galápagos Islands, with one catch: it's extinct. Researchers used molecular data from samples of museum specimens to determine that a subspecies of Vermilion Flycatcher should be elevated to full species status, but this newly recognized species hasn't been seen since 1987, and is considered to be the first modern extinction of a Galápagos bird species.  
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Tracing the evolution of bird reproduction  
What really came first -- the chicken or the egg? Birds' reproductive biology is dramatically different from that of any other living vertebrates, and scientists have long wondered how and when the unique features of bird reproduction originated. A new review examines answers from three sources--modern birds, fossils of primitive birds, and fossils of the dinosaurs from which birds are descended -- to shed new light on the subject.  
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Police Investigating Whether A Wimbledon Contestant Was Poisoned  
Gabriella Taylor, 18, was forced to withdraw from the junior women's tournament midway through her quarter final match, after being struck down with a mystery illness. And police think she may have been poisoned.  
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View from Greenwich  

www.javierayala-photography.com posted a photo:

© All rights reserved .
© Todos derechos reservados.
© Alle Rechte vorbehalten

London - England

 
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Paint the sky with clouds (Big Ben&Westminster Bridge , London)  

primulmeusarut posted a photo:

And in the middle of my chaos , there was the sky...

 
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Healthy Fish, Healthy Folks  


[Photo credit: Alexis Rife]

Throughout history, people living near any sea coast have relied on fish as a key dietary staple. Middens of kitchen and household wastes left behind on all continents provide strong evidence of the long and deep linkages between people of the shores and the sea. Now, new science published in the top-tier journal, Nature, makes abundantly clear that fish continues to serve an even more important role in human nutrition than experts have previously appreciated.

Every ocean conservationist knows by heart a key statistic: three billion people around the world depend on fish as a key source of protein. That number (varying from three to even five billion, depending on how much protein is "key") comes from the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), from "food balance sheets" that track the production and movement of every major food source in the context of changing populations. This tool is used to determine the percentages of total protein and animal protein that come from various sources, for countries around the world.

Food balance sheets from the just-published 2014 Yearbook of Fishery and Aquaculture Statistics, based on 2013 data, show that many nations remain highly dependent on fish for animal protein, with major fishing nations in food-insecure regions near the top of the list, including Bangladesh (56 percent), Indonesia (55 percent) and Myanmar (47 percent). Some countries in West Africa, and many island states, approach or even exceed 60 percent of animal protein from fish.

Now, a new study by Christopher Golden and colleagues calls the protein insufficiency risk, "the tip of the iceberg." They went one important step further, to factor in deficiencies of specific nutrients that are directly related to important human health outcomes, including micronutrients like zinc, calcium and iron, vitamins A and B12 and DHA omega-3 fatty acids. They created a huge new database (Global Expanded Nutrient Supply, GENuS) that combines the FAO food balance sheets with production and trade data, as well as food group intake by age and sex, to estimate edible supplies and consumption patterns for 225 foods, and then to estimate nutritional availability and vulnerability.

The researchers noted that 17 percent of the world population is already zinc deficient, that 20 percent of pregnant women already suffer iron-deficiency anemia, and that one third are already vitamin A deficient. Their new estimate is that today 845 million people (11 percent of the world population) are "poised to become deficient in one of these three micronutrients if current trajectories in fish-catch declines continue" and that 1.39 billion people (19 percent) are vulnerable to deficiencies and health impacts attributable to their dependence on fish as a limiting source of those key nutrients. They highlight special risks in South and Southeast Asia and West Africa.



Golden and company argue that the current trend of declining fish catches, documented in the Sea Around Us project, is likely to be exacerbated in many places by climate impacts, and will expand these risks significantly in the future, as the world population grows to nearly 10 billion by 2050, and past 11 billion by 2100. Undernourishment is already responsible for 45 percent of childhood mortality and for 50 percent of years lived with disabilities for children age four and under. The new model predicts that fully 10 percent of the global population will face micronutrient and fatty-acid deficiencies over coming decades, with the resulting health effects concentrated in the developing nations near the Equator, if nothing is done to fix overly intensive fishing.

The authors see some hope in expanding fish farming, as long as that is uncoupled from the wild-fish feeds currently in heavy use on fish farms.

I -- and our academic colleagues -- argue that there is also huge opportunity to transform wild fisheries, both to elevate fish stocks and improve ocean ecosystem health, to provide much more fish as food, and to provide income to help pay for nutrient-rich foodstuffs of all kinds, especially in vulnerable parts of the world.

Our recent paper in PNAS shows that 16 MMT per year of sustainable wild-caught fish can be landed from the world's ocean waters, feeding at least a half billion more people their annual protein. This new work suggests that, with careful management, this additional supply of fish would also supply an even more critical additional supply of micronutrients that could help keep those extra billions of people healthy!

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