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tvrdypavel posted a photo:
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Big Ben and Houses of parliament at dusk, London, UK
tvrdypavel posted a photo:
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Big Ben and Houses of parliament at dusk, London, UK
Researchers have failed repeatedly in their efforts to slow or halt Alzheimer's disease. But there are hints that an experimental drug can do what previous medicines could not.
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The world's oldest fossils have been discovered in Greenland after a layer of snow on ancient rocks melted, revealing stromatolites embedded in the Isua supracrustal belt.…
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My Planet Experience posted a photo:
!["Sand]("http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8139/29256609672_c14583e2a4_m.jpg")
The smallest of all wild cats, Sand Cats - Felis margarita - are true desert dwellers, with numerous adaptations to an arid life and colouring that blends in with their environment. They are the only felid to occur exclusively in desert habitat and are found in the deserts of northern Africa and central Asia.
As with most of the small felids, their numbers in the wild are unknown.
Sand cats are threatened by habitat loss, hunting and collection for pet trade. Disease transmission by pets also precipitate its decline.
Fortunately, Sand Cats are mainly nocturnal and sleep during the hours when people are active.
© www.myplanetexperience.com
My Planet Experience posted a photo:
!["Black-and-white]("http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8124/29204500235_fa951ac9e0_m.jpg")
The handsome black-and-white ruffed lemur is, along with the red ruffed lemur, the largest member of the Lemuridae family. This species inhabits lowland to mid-altitude rain forests in eastern Madagascar.
Listed as Critically Endangered as the species is suspected to have undergone a population decline of ≥80% over a period of 21 years (three generations), primarily due to observed and inferred continuing decline in area, extent and quality of habitat from slash-and-burn agriculture, logging and mining, in addition to exploitation through unsustainable hunting pressure.
These causes have not ceased, and will to a large extent not be easily reversible.
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My Planet Experience posted a photo:
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With as few as 45 adults remaining in the wild, the Amur leopard is probably the rarest and most critically endangered big cat in the world. Habitat destruction, degradation and poaching of Amur leopards and their prey are persistent threats. Hunted largely for its beautiful, spotted fur, the loss of each Amur leopard puts the species at greater risk of extinction.
The Amur leopard is classified as Critically Endangered since 1996 by IUCN. Data published by the World Wildlife Fund indicates that there are roughly 50 adult Amur leopards in the wild today.
The Amur leopard is a leopard subspecies native to the Primorye region of southeastern Russia and the Jilin Province of northeast China. They live for 10-15 years, and in captivity up to 20 years. The Amur leopard is also known as the Far East leopard, the Manchurian leopard or the Korean leopard.
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My Planet Experience posted a photo:
!["Kamchatka]("http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8474/28609030980_0336e408b4_m.jpg")
Irina (female), Igor and Ivan (males) are the Kamchatka brown bears of La Flèche Zoo Park, La Flèche, France
Kamchatka peninsula is home to the highest recorded density of brown bears on Earth. Population estimates for the peninsula range from 10,000 to 14,000 bears.
However, increasing human access through road development to expand mining and mineral exploration is fragmenting the bears' habitat. Kamchatka brown bears are now becoming rare in some regions close to human settlements.
As many as 2,000 bears are killed every year by poachers who come for the bear's gallbladder that sells for hundreds of dollars in the Asian market to use for folk remedies. Also placing the bears in danger are fishing industries seeking profit in the salmon, and decreasing the bears' richest source of food.
The Kamchatka brown bear is considered to be endangered.
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My Planet Experience posted a photo:
!["Eurasian]("http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8641/28127442814_3307005e72_m.jpg")
The Eurasian lynx, one of Europe's largest predators, has bounced back from the brink of extinction in Europe but it is still critically endangered in some areas.
The Eurasian Lynx is the largest lynx species, and has one of the widest ranges of any wild cat.
The increasing urbanization of western Europe, and the resulting loss of habitat and diminished prey base, have led to a severe reduction of the Eurasian Lynx population there.
Escalating deforestation, persecution as stock killers, and illegal poaching remain major threats to their future. They are heavily trapped for the fur trade across their range, and legally hunted in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Estonia and Latvia.
Reintroduction programs have taken place in Switzerland, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, Italy and France. Studies have shown that Eurasian Lynx are quick to rebound if hunting pressures are lessened, and protected areas with good prey bases are set aside.
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syphrix photography posted a photo:
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A pair of sun parakeets interacting with one another.
Taken at the Singapore Jurong Bird Park
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marco18678 posted a photo:
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tvrdypavel posted a photo:
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Big Ben and Houses of parliament at dusk, London, UK
tvrdypavel posted a photo:
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Big Ben and Houses of parliament at dusk, London, UK
I didn't realize how pervasive animal exploitation is in our culture.
Veganism is certainly about animals, but it doesn't mean we disrespect our own species along the way.
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I didn't realize how pervasive animal exploitation is in our culture.
Veganism is certainly about animals, but it doesn't mean we disrespect our own species along the way.
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The endangered Hawaiian monk seal is one of the 7,000 species that gained a measure of protection.U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, CC BY
President Obama's environmental record just went big. On August 26, he quadrupled the size of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in the center of the Pacific Ocean, northwest of Hawaii. Whatever other conservation actions he takes in his final months in office, Papahānaumokuākea will be hard to top.
The new monument is also outsized in the interrelated issues that it will address - and generate. In Papahānaumokuākea, biology, politics and policy converge and collide in revelatory ways.
For those of us who study the intersection of environmental history, policy and politics on sea and land as I do, it's clear the creation of this gigantic marine monument is a huge step forward for conservation and for helping ecosystems adapt to a changing climate.
But it also poses such significant management, budgetary and political challenges that I fear Papahānaumokuākea will complicate, if not submarine, President Obama's ambitious environmental agenda.
To understand the challenges Papahānaumokuākea will pose, start with the site's remoteness - it is a far remove even from the main Hawaiian Islands, never mind the West Coast. Add, then, its vastness: President Obama added more than 440,000 square miles to boost the already designated monument to a staggering 582,578 square miles. Note: These are square miles, not acres. So gigantic is this national monument that it is larger than all the U.S. national parks and national forests combined; it's not much smaller than Alaska.
The conservation mission of Papahānaumokuākea, which is now the largest blue reserve on this blue planet, is also a tall order. Significantly, it prohibits fishing and other resource exploitation so as to protect such endangered species as the short-tailed albatross and the remaining population of Hawaiian monk seals, as well as the long-living black coral (some of which are estimated to be 4,000 years old). So little of its flora and fauna have been studied that it is highly likely that the 7,000 species known to inhabit the region are but a fraction of those actually there.
Finally, the national monument comes with a social justice commitment: The state's lead indigenous rights agency, the Department of Hawaiian Affairs, will help supervise archaeological and sacred sites, an innovative co-management initiative. By any calculation, Papahānaumokuākea is astonishing.
But it precisely the national monument's massive proportions that make its effective management so daunting.
![]("https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/136004/area14mp/image-20160830-26282-19vtpn2.jpg")
Consider that the first generation of forest rangers on the U.S. national forests had to control only one million acres in the remote western mountains, and yet understandably they were baffled how they and their horses could steward their new domain. Imagine their modern counterparts trying to survey a waterscape 100 times that extent, even with airplanes and satellites; Papahānaumokuākea dwarfs our faith in management by technology.
Now add budgetary constraints to the vastness of Papahānaumokuākea: The National Park Service's funding has taken a hit recently at the same time that the number of properties it supervises has mushroomed, thanks to President Obama's rapid-fire creation of 26 new national monuments (with even more anticipated).
I understand why the chief executive is moving with dispatch (a mash-up of legacy building and opportunity knocks). But I worry that the speed with which these sites have been designated, and their disparate fiscal demands, has outstripped the executive branch's capacity to underwrite them. My worry is magnified given the strong opposition in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives to the president's ready use of the Antiquities Act.
Papahānaumokuākea will be a major test of the federal government's stewardship, then, not least because in the run-up to its expansion the National Park Service held a series of raucous public meetings in which the industrial and longline fishing industry, along with native organizations, opposed the designation.
Preservation of marine life, they argued, is in direct competition with their long history of harvesting food from these very waters. How the National Park Service manages these fraught human dynamics will be every bit as critical as its stewardship of the marinescape's threatened biodiversity.
At the same time, I am buoyed by the national monument's oddly bipartisan political history: It owes existence to two very different presidents, one whose administration downplayed emerging climate change science, the other who has been at the forefront of world leaders responding to the threats climate change poses.
In 2006, after a White House screening of Jacques-Michel Cousteau's documentary "Voyage to Kure," which details human damage to the islands' ecosystems, President George W. Bush was moved to action. Using the 1906 Antiquities Act, he set aside Papahānaumokuākea - the first of four oceanic parks he would create in the Pacific. Time magazine dubbed this collection of sites Bush's last acts of "greenness," while a legion of environmental critics suggested they were his first and last; no president had used the Antiquities Act less than Bush did.
![]("https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/136000/area14mp/image-20160830-25615-1ik29uu.jpg")
Moreover, given how far away these sites were from the continental U.S., their very isolation dampened any controversy. Still, as Time magazine noted, these "marine monuments will mean that President Bush - perhaps the least environmental president in U.S. history - will have protected more of the ocean than anyone else in the world."
President Obama has blown that claim out of the water. But he did so in a more calculated, less cathartic manner. As part of his 2009 commitment to address climate change, his administration has sought projects that would enhance landscape resilience to the effects of climate change.
In 2014, Obama added roughly 300,000 square miles to the Bush-inaugurated Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument (now totaling 490,343 square miles), a stretch of remote Pacific islands south and west of Hawaii. When he did so, he justified its expansion as a way to strengthen Pacific ecosystems. The same rationale was deployed in support of Papahānaumokuākea National Monument.
These two mega monuments, when combined with the 126 other (and smaller) U.S. marine sanctuaries, now account for about 26 percent of the nation's waters, meaning that collectively they are giving oceanic species a fighting chance to survive as the climate-charged seas warm and rise. They also make the president's latest action in the Pacific more than a grand gesture. It just might be a planetary life preserver.
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Char Miller, W. M. Keck Professor of Environmental Analysis, Pomona College
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
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From a Russian workers' club to an Italian office giving medievalism a modern twist, RIBA fellow Alan Powers salutes 10 underappreciated architectural gems
Continue reading...!["2016_UM31_RogerDean_IslandsAndBridges_MintSet"]("http://chimpfeedr.com/img/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fs3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com%2Fcentaur-wp%2Fdesignweek%2Fprod%2Fcontent%2Fuploads%2F2016%2F08%2F30181205%2F2016_UM31_RogerDean_IslandsAndBridges_MintSet-944x500.jpeg&width=540&mix=22833-design")
Design Week: How did the Islands and Bridges first come about?
Roger Dean: A group of people on the Isle of Man the guy who runs the local radio station, 3FM; a business partner of mine who lives there, David Moseley; and a man called Wayne Lee thought it would be a good idea if I had an exhibition of my paintings on the Isle of Man.
So that was arranged and we also met the post office to see if they were interested in having a set of stamps, and they were. The stamps came out on 19 August which was the first day of my exhibition.
DW: Why did the Isle of Man catch your attention in particular?
RD: I've been going back and forwards to the Isle of Man for a number of reasons, mostly business. Last year I did a presentation at the Isle of Man Film Festival, and I also gave a small talk to the students of the art school there.
DW: How did you and the Isle of Man Post Office select which of your works feature?
RD: I did a preliminary selection and showed them some designs, but they left the choice to me. I made the choice from paintings that were in the exhibition. The set of stamps, from my point of view, was to coincide with the opening of the exhibition so in a way it was to celebrate the opening.
DW: What was the appeal of having your album artworks used on stamps?
RD: I like the idea of seeing miniature versions of my paintings. It had a whole new feel for me. The paintings are typically very large three of the paintings used are 6 feet by 4 feet. I love the jewel like intensity of them reduced very small.
DW: They all include very vivid landscapes how do you translate that amount of detail onto something as small as a stamp?
RD: Tales from Typographic Oceans had a lot of pieces of landscape in there. There's a waterfall in the foreground from a place called Brimham Rocks in Yorkshire, and rocks on either side that come from Cornwall.
At that size it's hard to see it is that artwork, but two million or so people who bought the original album will know it very well, so I guess they're pleased to see it.
DW: Do you think nostalgia plays a part in the stamps' appeal to people?
RD: I hadn't really thought of it in terms of nostalgia, but yes it's a kind of reinforcement of it. And Yes are actually touring in America at the moment playing Tales from Topographic Oceans.
DW: Can you describe the original Isle of Man-inspired commission for the stamp series?
RD: I was asked had I done anything specifically related to the Isle of Man, which at the time I'd been considering. Previously I'd been taken as a guest to all kinds of interesting places and one place in particular caught my attention: Niarbyl.
Over many many hundreds of millions of years, one American tectonic plate and one African plate allegedly met there. I had already done some sketches and things with the notion that it would not necessarily be a portrait of the place, but a portrait of a place that I'd kind of made my own.
I called the painting Meeting Place because it's where the two rocks meet. It's actually quite a small rock but I'd painted it like a mountain, with trees around it that would make it look vast.
It's a painting that's 120cm by 80cm so it's smaller than some of the others, but I think it looks nice small; it works well on a sheet of all the same ones.
Islands and Bridges is available to order from the Isle of Man Post Office website and the exhibition runs 19 November at the Manx Museum in Douglas.
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The post Islands and Bridges: The work of Roger Dean appeared first on Design Week.
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The city of Dundee is inviting designers to enter a competition which looks to tackle homelessness.
The first ever Dundee International Design Challenge is being run by UNESCO City of Design Dundee.
UNESCO is a United Nations organisation which promotes culture worldwide and grants cities cultural status. Dundee was awarded UNESCO status for design in 2014.
The competition is calling for designers to create a digital design solution that will improve the lives of homeless people, and potentially prevent homelessness happening in the first place.
The brief states the solution needs to “reconnect homeless people with everyday life”, and must take into account their limited access to digital technology.
The main issues applicants should look at include legal rights, food poverty, substance abuse, accommodation, emotional support, communication and prevention of homelessness.
Entries will be assessed by an industry panel based on four criteria innovation, feasibility, potential for development and budget.
The challenge is open to individuals or teams working in a UNESCO City of Design, which currently includes Dundee (Scotland), Bilbao (Spain), Curitiba (Brazil), Helsinki (Finland) and Turin (Italy), or those who are working with UNESCO in some way. The prize will only be awarded to one person.
The winner will receive £6,000 prize money, and a three-month placement in Dundee to develop their prototype with all expenses covered, mentor support, studio space and an exhibition at the end of the residency.
The closing date for entries is 5pm on 28 November 2016. For more information on how to enter, head here.
Dundee was granted UNESCO status for its contribution to the design industry through areas such as medical research, game and comic book design.
Computer games Grand Theft Auto and Lemmings were developed in the city, alongside The Beano comic. The V&A Museum of Design also opens in Dundee in 2018.
The post Dundee launches design competition to tackle homelessness appeared first on Design Week.
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I recently received a tweet (from a professional writer) commenting on a DBA course helping consultancies develop and write content marketing. The writer's argument will be familiar to many a designer “leave it to the professionals”. This is a phrase many DBA members will level at their own clients when it comes to design.
However, most consultancies cannot afford to employ a full time writer, so this got me thinking when is it right to write?
No one would question that in most business situations bringing in an expert in the field produces better results than a DIY approach, and the value of a professional writer is undoubted. But does this imply that designers should not write? What of all that expertise, passion and opinion sitting in their heads?
After all, says content marketing strategist, Ian Rhodes, from Brand Less Ordinary: “Your content is there to open your doors and show your potential customers what makes your agency tick. It provides you with the opportunity to show your audience the value and identity of your agency. It helps you show people why what you make matters.” Could it be that those at the coalface within your business are perfectly placed to deliver this? Can what is lacked in writing talent, be made up for with passion and insight?
Pancentric head of marketing Joe Carstairs says that one of the biggest advantages of an “all-in approach” where everyone on the team is involved in content marketing is “the brand amplification it can create”, meaning that, “employees who evangelise about their company are a powerful new business tool.”
He also sees it as a great way to capitalise on under-utilised resource. “Sharing the content marketing load around a consultancy is a great way to fill any dips in production. While the content created by people with different skillsets adds diversity to what is generated,” he says.
To be successful however, it does all have to stem out of a good content marketing strategy that is well thought through and implemented in a considered manner. But says Carstairs, once that is in place then “a simple style guide, some clear content pillars and a bit of editorial oversight is all your colleagues need to get going.”
There are, of course, some consultancies which sell their ability to help clients with their own content marketing. In cases like this it is imperative that writers are employed so it makes sense for them to also be utilised in the promotion of the consultancy.
ThinkBDA is a Buckingham based creative consultancy offering design and marketing services. These services include helping clients with their content. ThinkBDA managing director David Knowles says, “Content writing is a skill it is about crafting words in such a way as to draw people into a subject.”
“Having an in-house content person gives flexibility allowing us to be more reactive when faced with creative client challenges,” says Knowles, who adds: “Just because someone doesn't have ‘writer' in their job title doesn't mean they can't produce content. Our whole team can contribute in what is often a team effort.”
First up, ask yourself (and your agency as a whole): “Why do we want to produce content? What image are we trying to portray?”
If what you are talking about has no bearing on:
a. Positioning you and your business as experts in your field,
b. Raising your profile among your peers within your industry, then stop right there. You are wasting your time. Similarly a tweet saying “We offer great design at competitive prices” is not going to get a potential client clicking through.
If you find yourself spending all your time writing about 1060's Japanese Manga, but are unable to link it to your client base then I suggest you carry on doing this within the confines of your own personal blog far removed from your business.
Content should be audience relevant and you need to find the issues that affect both you as a business and your clients preferably at the same time. They are pretty broad customer engagement, client relationships, return on investment. Then delve into the more sector specific issues depending on your client base.
To get started find a trusted source that deals with issues affecting you and use them for inspiration. Newcastle-based Wonderstuff founder Paul Alderson says: “We often look at the DBA for inspiration up and coming events on their website, their ezine then we ask ourselves ‘What is our opinion on that subject?' Our staff are not writers but they are communicators. The more they write the better they get and it equips them to form their own opinions, something we have always encouraged.
“Once you have a clear idea of who you are targeting and what values you want to align yourselves with, it becomes easy. By putting your beliefs out there you give clients a reason to choose you, a consultancy that does great work, but also has the same outlook as the client.”
To broaden the content output from your consultancy you need to trust your staff to illustrate their expertise, opinions and passion. But as Alderson says, you need a clear strategy in place one that has been developed in conjunction with your positioning and new business plans. This takes time and consideration, but can produce fantastic rewards for a consultancy looking to differentiate themselves in a crowded marketplace.
Adam Fennelow is Head of Services at the DBA.
The post When is it right for designers to write? appeared first on Design Week.
!["Swedish]("http://chimpfeedr.com/img/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fs3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com%2Fcentaur-wp%2Fdesignweek%2Fprod%2Fcontent%2Fuploads%2F2016%2F08%2F30145704%2FThe-Dining-Club-by-IKEA-outside-sketch.jpg&width=540&mix=22833-design")
Ikea has designed a dedicated restaurant space where diners cook under the instruction of a head chef before sitting down to eat with up to 20 of their friends.
The pop-up Dining Club has been conceived and designed in-house by Ikea and is set to open in London's Shoreditch on 10 September. The whole experience is free for diners.
Ikea has been inspired by its understanding that people are spending less time cooking and eating together in the UK. It will mean that diners get to “mimic an actual dinner party, but one where diners can host more guests than usual,” Ikea says.
A Food for Thought masterclass will offer further tutelage on topics like “Swedish Baking, The Future of Food, and Clean Eating.”
An Ikea homewares shop selling kitchen products has also been set up within the space as well as a kitchen showroom featuring units, fixtures and fittings.
Ikea was unable to confirm whether The Dining Club will be rolled out further or made permanent.
Head here to find out more or to make a reservation.
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This week 350 years ago, the Great Fire of London burned through 400 of the city's streets. Matthew Green reveals the extraordinary structures lost in the blaze from old St Paul's to a riverside castle and what survived, only to vanish later
“Oh the miserable and calamitous spectacle!” wrote John Evelyn in 1666, “mine eyes … now saw above 10,000 houses all in one flame.” The conflagration he witnessed from 2-5 September destroyed much of the medieval metropolis, swallowing 400 streets, 13,200 houses, 87 churches, and 44 livery halls.
Many of the City of London's most iconic buildings were consumed: St Paul's Cathedral, the Royal Exchange, Newgate Prison, Christ's Hospital, even Whittington's Longhouse, one of the biggest public toilets in Europe, in the Vintry. Evelyn was aghast at the destruction of so much of the medieval centre: “London was, but is no more”.
Related: How London might have looked: five masterplans after the great fire
Continue reading...Ikea's flat-pack refugee shelter, an online sexual health test and Taipei's scooter share among ideas to go on show at London's new Design Museum
David Bowie's final album cover, a build-your-own robotic surgeon and a coffee cup that allows astronauts to drink in space are among the Designs of the Year, a 70-strong lineup of ingenious innovations that will be exhibited at the Design Museum's new home in Kensington from 24 November.
Related: Design Museum aims for Tate Modern effect in new home, says director
Continue reading...![]("http://chimpfeedr.com/img/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.designboom.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2016%2F08%2Fconey-art-walls-2016-brooklyn-new-york-designboom-01.jpg&width=540&mix=0b54d-art")
overlooking the heart of the coney island amusement district, the space brings creativity and artistry to the famous boardwalk and beach.
The post coney art walls turn brooklyn landmark into an open-air museum appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.
How are dogs and wolves similar and different? In a word? Intensity. Take any behavior exhibited by even the most uninhibited dog, then turn it up to thirty-seven and you've got that same behavior in a wolf.
Put another way, dogs dig holes; wolves dig mines. Dogs might rip up your sofa, a wolf will reduce one to feathers,splinters, springs and bits of fabric no more than a one-inch square.
I like to call wolves "raw dogs", "proto-dogs", or "the blueprint". Even with captive bred wolves, they exhibit a broader and more complex range of behavior than what I've experienced with dogs.
Even primitive dog breeds (more "wolf like" dogs) seem to be less adept at solving problems and more inclined to look towards a human for help.
Wolves have around 33% more gray matter than a comparably sized domestic dog. In general, I've witnessed the ability among wolves and high content wolfdogs to solve problems quickly that stymy dogs until they give up.
Aqutaq [my wolf], for example is incredibly adept with a lead line. She fully understands the concept of the line and that it connects us in such a way that we must be on the same side of any tall obstacle. She might be sixteen feet in front of me and on the wrong side of a tree, yet she'll anticipate this issue, and alter course such that she moves to pass the tree on the side that matches mine.
If she becomes entangled while moving through brush, she also understands to retrace the path of the line to unwind it.
Physically, they're very similar, although domestic dogs can eat foods that contain many more carbohydrates as a result of their long-term association with people. Wolves are also only reproductively active once a year, whereas dogs can cycle multiple times. Pound for pound wolves are stronger, have better endurance, have a much greater bite force, and are faster than all but a very select few breeds of dog.
For those that are curious, in my life I've had many different breeds of domestic dogs including:
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Oldest European object left on Australian soil on loan from Amsterdam, and WA Maritime Museum says it will probably not leave the Netherlands again
A pewter plate that is the oldest European object to be left on Australian soil has been loaned to a Perth museum 400 years after it was originally nailed to a wooden post in Shark Bay, Western Australia.
The flattened engraved plate was left by the Dutch explorer Dirk Hartog in 1616 in the Dutch East India company ship Eendracht, meaning unity or concord, which had arrived there en route to Java.
Related: It's not 'politically correct' to say Australia was invaded, it's history | Paul Daley
1616 the 25 October is here arrived the ship Eendraght of Amsterdam, the upper merchant Gillis Miebais of Liege, skipper Dirck Hatichs of Amsterdam. The 27 ditto (we) set sail for Bantam, the undermerchant Jan Stins, the first mate Pieter Dookes Van Bil. Anno 1616
Related: Indigenous treasures, briefly on loan to Australia, are about to be taken away again
Continue reading...![]("http://chimpfeedr.com/img/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.designboom.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2016%2F08%2Fredball-antwerp-installation-designboom-01.jpg&width=540&mix=0b54d-art")
around the belgian city, 'redball' visits famous sights such as the law courts designed by architect richard rogers and the HETPALEIS performing artists center.
The post redball project squeezes into architectural landmarks across antwerp appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.
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seen from a distance, the outline of this low, walled enclosure conjures the image of a life-size lego construction.
The post benedetto bufalino installs a walled football field on a beach in anglet, france appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.
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the display, which runs from september 10th to october 30th, 2016, serves as a platform for the sale of outdoor art.
The post zaha hadid's lilas pavilion featured at sotheby's beyond limits sculpture exhibition appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.
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When deadlines are looming, the phone keeps ringing, and your inbox is overflowing, the idea of taking a break seems faintly ludicrous. The only option, you tell yourself, is just to plough on. Understandable, but shortsighted you'll end up paying a heavy price in the long term.
Just as you need to refuel your car and recharge the batteries in your cell phone, it's important to give yourself the chance to recoup your energy levels throughout the workday. In fact, the more demanding your day, and the less time you feel like you have to take any breaks, the more crucial it is that you make sure you do take regular breaks to prevent yourself from becoming exhausted.
But not just any kind of break will do. Psychologists and business scholars have recently started studying the most effective ways to relax during a workday they call them “micro breaks” and their latest findings point to some simple rules of thumb to sustain and optimize your energy levels through a grueling nine to five. We've crunched the data into the following three-step process to reach peak restfulness.
It's extremely tempting, especially when we're tired, to spend breaks doing things that are convenient, but aren't truly restful. This might be internet shopping, browsing the latest news, or skimming an industry magazine. However, studies show that brief work breaks are only genuinely rejuvenating when they give you the chance to fully switch off. By contrast, any kind of activity that involves willpower or concentration, even if it's not in a work context, is only going to add to your fatigue levels.
Consider a study published this year by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and George Mason University that involved nearly a hundred Korean office workers keeping a diary for ten work days, in which they noted how much work pressure they had after lunch and what they did during any work breaks. Each participant ultimately noted how fatigued they felt at the end of the day. The researchers coded the work break activities as relaxing (such as daydreaming or stretching), as nutrition-based (grabbing a coffee), social (chatting with colleagues), or cognitive (reading newspapers or checking emails).
As you'd expect, feeling that work demands were more intense around lunch time went hand in hand with feeling more end-of-day fatigue. Crucially, the right kind of break provided a protective buffer against this link between work demands and fatigue. Which kind of break was this? Only relaxation and social break activities had any benefit. Cognitive activities during work breaks actually made fatigue worse, likely because reading websites or checking emails taxes many of the same mental processes that we use when we're working.
Another related study, published this year by a pair of researchers at Ajou University in South Korea and the Korea Institute for Research in the Behavioral Sciences, found that workers who spent their lunch break using their smart phone, as opposed to chatting with friends, felt like they'd enjoyed as much distraction from work as the sociable folk, but they actually ended up feeling more emotionally exhausted in the afternoon.
There's a popular theory in psychology that says our concentration and willpower levels are like fuel in a car the more you use them in one activity, the less you have left over for other tasks. The theory has recently come under criticism for being overly simplistic, but if nothing else, it provides a useful analogy to make sense of the new research findings on workday breaks: As your energy reserves get gradually depleted through the day, you're only going to allow these reserves to replenish if you genuinely relax in your break times.
A key insight from the research is that it makes a difference when you take breaks. Most of us feel more energetic in the morning than in the afternoon, and it can be tempting to wait until we're flagging later in the day before allowing ourselves a short break. However, findings suggest that we actually respond better to breaks in the morning it seems you need to have some fuel in the tank to benefit from a re-fill.
This was one of the main findings to come out of a study of 95 employees at Baylor University across five days, in which they filled out brief surveys about how they were feeling after each break they took. Breaks taken in the morning were much more beneficial, in terms of the improvements in how the workers said they felt afterwards physically and mentally.
A related detail from this study was that if you take frequent breaks, then they don't need to be as long to be beneficial a couple of minutes might be enough. On the other hand, if you deprive yourself of many breaks, then when you do take one, it's going to be need to be longer to have any beneficial effect.
Of course, when you're embroiled in a complicated creative project, the idea of breaking off for 30 minutes or an hour can seem unappealing and impractical and so you end up wading on, meaning your performance is likely to suffer. Crucially, if you remember and have the self-discipline to take breaks early and often, you won't be faced with this dilemma later in the day you will be less fatigued, and any breaks you take at this later juncture needn't be as long and disruptive.
For creatives who work in a large office building, it's easy to find yourself spending whole days indoors you might take breaks to the water cooler or the staff canteen, but nothing beats getting outside and away from the work environment. One problem with staying in the office, is that even if you take a decent lunch break and chat with colleagues, there's still that pressure to maintain a good impression and you often end up talking shop.
When researchers led by John P. Trougakos at the University of Toronto recently studied the effect of different lunch break activities among nearly a hundred university workers, they found that staff who socialized at lunch or did any work-related activities at lunch were rated as more fatigued by their colleagues at the end of the day. This was especially the case if the socializing was imposed by management something to bear in mind for bosses who try too hard to foster camaraderie in the work place.
If you can get outside, even if it's just a five minute walk around the block, you potentially depending on where you're located also get to benefit from a rejuvenating dose of nature. Countless studies have shown how a green environment gives us a mental recharge, and what's really encouraging is that recent work has shown that this doesn't have to be a tropical rainforest. A modest urban park is all it takes.
There's a work zeitgeist today that says you have to be constantly busy to succeed. If you've got time to go for a short walk, you're obviously not consumed by drive and ambition, so the mistaken ethos goes. The psychological reality is that your mental and physical reserves are limited and it is only by taking frequent short breaks of a truly restful nature that you will fulfil your true potential.
A final thought you might have the view that you'll push yourself relentlessly during the day, squeezing every minute for what it's worth, and then completely flake out after dark. This strategy of extremes might work for a robot, but not a human. Psychology research from the University of Konstanz in German and Portland State University shows that over-exhaustion at the end of the day makes it even more difficult to recuperate after work hours. In other words allowing yourself proper breaks during the day will make your out-of-hours recovery more effective, ultimately boosting your productivity and creativity in the weeks and months ahead.
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Russian scientists think they may have received a signal from a star 94.4 light years from Earth. Other expert alien-spotters have moved quickly to investigate
Name: HD164595.
Age: 4.5 billion years, give or take.
Continue reading..._ Reboot © __ posted a photo:
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Big Ben and Houses of parliament at dusk, London, UK
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Michel Chevreul Scientist of the Day
Michel-Eugène Chevreul, a French chemist and color theorist, was born Aug. 31, 1786.
Tomorrow's morning sky will be temporarily blotted by an inky blackness as the Sun disappears behind the moon, leaving a dazzling ‘ring of fire' in an annular solar eclipse over Africa.…
“They're the pinnacle, they're what everyone wants to row out here,” Trevor tells me as he loads up his first dory. We're on the Salmon River in central Idaho, packing up for a six-day float through the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness. I cut my teeth guiding on this river, and I couldn't wait to come back, this time with a camera.
!["Trevor]("http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/files/2016/07/OARS-5786-600x400.jpg")
For those that don't know, a dory is a large flat-bottomed row boat, made from various materials including wood, fiberglass, or aluminum. In my eyes (and for most boatman I've encountered), there is no better way to experience a river. In a dory, you can feel “every wave, ripple, and current” that passes beneath the boat. At the hands of a skilled guide, dories are the most maneuverable and responsive boats through a rapid. However, with this speed comes great responsibility. It is awfully easy to put a hole in one of these boats, so only the most skilled guides get to row them.
!["The]("http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/files/2016/07/OARS_--600x316.jpg")
Trevor grew up around whitewater. His father was one of the early dory guides in Idaho. Trevor's got years of guiding experience under his belt now, but today he's been granted his first dory, the Great Thumb (each boat is named for a threatened or lost place).
As he packs up he tells me about the spots he's most nervous about. He's done this stretch of river dozens of times, but sitting behind the oars of a dory, everything will look different. A shallow rock in a raft means a slight bump, in a dory it can be catastrophic. Gun Barrel rapid on day one will test him, and Black Creek on day two.
“Black Creek,” I ask. Never heard of it. Its been almost 10 years since I last paddled this river, but I was pretty sure I hadn't paddled any Black Creek rapid.
!["Lunch]("http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/files/2016/07/OARS-4948-600x400.jpg")
Due to the truly wild and undammed nature of this river, it is always changing. A few years ago Black Creek flash-flooded and filled the river channel with boulders, creating a brand new rapid in its place (and coincidentally took away the iconic Salmon Falls rapid just up stream).
The Salmon River continues to carve a new path, a unique quality for a river today. Trevor and the other guides know that sharing these amazing places with people will be the best way to protect them for future generations. And what better way to go down river than in the Cadillac of boats, the dory.
The Water Is for Fighting project documents the challenges facing our nations freshwater resources. Corey Robinson is a filmmaker and Young Explorer Grantee collecting these stories through film, still pictures and words. Check out the other videos here.
Follow along with @coreyrobinson #w4f2015
“Whisky is for drinking, water is for fighting.”
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The Royal Navy's newest offshore patrol vessel, HMS Forth, is now fitting out in Glasgow and we're told she weighs as much as 120 London buses.…
select mixes by genre: | !["Click]("http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-okBD42e5oHQ/U_-JNT-JUXI/AAAAAAAAAKs/wwab_4pIPn4/s1600/house.jpg") | !["Click]("http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YGZhNhC2Dyk/U_-KVliFfoI/AAAAAAAAAK4/aFnCFjU9nfE/s1600/deep.jpg") | !["Click]("http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pMzsFYm9Oyk/U_910oIcjrI/AAAAAAAAAJ8/iFaYhcUtD_g/s1600/soulfunk.jpg") | !["Click]("http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hunf1Ywsdyo/VViHzxueVyI/AAAAAAAAA5c/jO4rW1JFh4Q/s1600/disco1.jpg") |
| 000:00 | milk and sugar | heat | enormous |
| 005:53 | mambo brothers | momento | toolroom |
| 011:44 | jindo | summer stories | inmotion |
| 015:22 | dj face off | the power | ppmusic |
| 019:55 | mark knight | your love | toolroom |
| 025:35 | technasia | suga | toolroom |
| 029:30 | giom | kalimba song | supremus |
| 034:43 | coeo | native riddim | toy tonics |
| 040:17 | superlover | circus | suara |
| 044:27 | love committee | just as long as I got you | alkalino |
| 053:29 | razor-n-tape | so true | razor-n-tape |
| 057:51 | italobros | for love | fogbank |
| 061:36 | paolo barbato | keep on loving | ocean trax |
| 064:28 | prok and fitch | tears | suara |
| 069:25 | ronn | sunshine | guesthouse |
| 073:19 | dirty secretz | trippin | whartone |
| 076:42 | brothers in progress | collision | monza ibiza |
| 081:19 | dj face off | surfer | white |
| 085:57 | the face | loving | defmix |
| 090:36 | nice7 | point | gruuv |
| 096:18 | greg gauthier | another door | what's up |
| 101:44 | gerd | for 12 mins she danced with an alien | bmu |
![]("https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1xxKL_1zUFw/V8a-bED89ZI/AAAAAAAABG4/F2xsOhUTHnc3ARoC5jlBJ6g6z47bNN8zACLcB/s1600/abrad-300816.jpg")
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MESH App
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Bonifacio on the island of Corsica, France (© BIOSPHOTO/Alamy) 2016-08-31 [www.bing.com/search] ![]("http://chimpfeedr.com/img/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fs-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com%2F236x%2F07%2F01%2Ff0%2F0701f04e7246078c7c8d31d16052f4e1.jpg&width=540&mix=9f897-pin-images")
blazepress: “ Reine, Norway. ” ![]("http://chimpfeedr.com/img/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fs-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com%2F236x%2F04%2F78%2Fce%2F0478ce24f802e0fdefcc0db430927958.jpg&width=540&mix=9f897-pin-images")
Daily Dozen — Photos -- National Geographic Your Shot ![]("http://chimpfeedr.com/img/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fs-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com%2F236x%2Ffb%2F8e%2Fbf%2Ffb8ebf87c6e3d15d40f904b27ef0eb0a.jpg&width=540&mix=9f897-pin-images")
Daily Dozen — Photos -- National Geographic Your Shot ![]("http://chimpfeedr.com/img/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fs-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com%2F236x%2F0c%2F3d%2F95%2F0c3d956afda1c633bfc46011026fb03b.jpg&width=540&mix=9f897-pin-images")
Moray Inca ruins near Maras, Peru (© Panoramic Images/Getty Images) 2016-08-30 [www.bing.com/search]
Yesterday, we reported that an international team of astronomers detected signals coming from almost 100 light years away, that appeared to be a strong candidate for extraterrestrial contact, according to a document circulated by Alexander Panov, a theorectical physicist at Lomonosov Moscow State University --"a strong signal in the direction of HD164595, a planet system in the constellation Hercules was detected on May 15, using the RATAN-600 radio telescope (below) in the Russian Republic of Karachay-Cherkessia."
Today, Eric Korpela, an astronomer with Berkeley SETI, downplayed the hype over this latest signal in a note reported by VOX on the Berkeley SETI website. "All in all, it's relatively uninteresting from a SETI standpoint." Korpela continued:
"I looked over the presentation. I was unimpressed. In one out of 39 scans that passed over star showed a signal at about 4.5 times the mean noise power with a profile somewhat like the beam profile. Of course SETI@home has seen millions of potential signals with similar characteristics, but it takes more than that to make a good candidate. Multiple detections are a minimum criterion.
"Because the receivers used were making broad band measurements, there's really nothing about this "signal" that would distinguish it from a natural radio transient (stellar flare, active galactic nucleus, microlensing of a background source, etc.) There's also nothing that could distinguish it from a satellite passing through the telescope field of view. All in all, it's relatively uninteresting from a SETI standpoint."
"If the transient claimed originates from beyond the Earth, then, given what we currently know of the parameters of the RATAN search, such events ought to be common. The fact that they are not frequently seen in continuum imaging surveys suggests that the RATAN transient is likely due to instrumental interference or to some other artifact of human technology. While absence of evidence for extraterrestrial intelligence is by no means evidence of absence, our GBT observations did not detect ongoing emission from the direction of HD 164595 between9.1 and 11.6 GHz to a sensitivity of ∼ 10 mJy (10σ).
"Single-epoch transients are by their nature hard to confirm ordeny, illustrating the need for confirming followup, either at a later time, or as part of the observing strategy (whether triggered follow-up of interesting sources, or some form of onoff observing). We intend to re-observe HD 164595 as part of the Breakthrough Listen target list, along with ongoing observations of targets selected using a range of criteria."
The Berkeley SETI team concluded that they "welcome opportunities for partnership in order to quickly validate and analyze candidate signals, to continue to develop tools and techniques, and to share our excitement with those who, like us, seek to answer the question, “Are we alone?”.
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The world's attention is now on Proxima Centauri b, a possibly Earth-like planet orbiting the closest star, 4.22 light-years away. The planet's orbit is just right to allow liquid water on its surface, needed for life. But could it in fact be habitable? If life is possible there, the planet evolved very differently than Earth, say researchers at the University of Washington-based Virtual Planetary Laboratory, where astronomers, geophysicists, climatologists, evolutionary biologists and others team to study how distant planets might host life.
“If Proxima b is habitable, then it might be an ideal place to move. Perhaps we have just discovered a future home for humanity. But in order to know for sure, we must make more observations, run many more computer simulations and, hopefully, send probes to perform the first direct reconnaissance of an exoplanet,” says Rory Barnes, University of Washington research assistant professor of astronomy. “The challenges are huge, but Proxima b offers a bounty of possibilities that fills me with wonder.”
Proxima Centauri b may be the first exoplanet to be directly characterized by powerful ground- and space-based telescopes planned, and its atmosphere spectroscopically probed for active biology.
Astronomers at Queen Mary University in London have announced discovery of Proxima Centauri b, a planet orbiting close to a star 4.22 light years away. The find has been called “the biggest exoplanet discovery since the discovery of exoplanets.”
Rory Barnes, UW research assistant professor of astronomy, published a blog post about the discovery at palereddot.org, a website dedicated to the search for life around Proxima Centauri. His essay describes research underway through the UW planetary lab — part of the NASA Astrobiology Institute — to answer the question, is life possible on this world?
“The short answer is, ‘It's complicated,' Barnes writes. “Our observations are few, and what we do know allows for a dizzying array of possibilities” — and almost as many questions.
Using computer models, the Virtual Planetary Laboratoryresearchers studied clues from the orbits of the planet, its system, its host star and apparent companion stars Alpha Centauri A and B — plus what is known of stellar evolution to begin evaluating Proxima b's chances.
It's at least as massive as Earth and may be several times more massive, and its “year” — the time it takes to orbit its star — is only 11 days. Its star is only 12 percent as massive as our sun and much dimmer (so its habitable zone, allowing liquid water on the surface, is much closer in) and the planet is 25 times closer in than Earth is to our Sun.
The star may form a third part of the Alpha Centauri binary star system, separated by a distance of 15,000 “astronomical units,” which could affect the planet's orbit and history. The new data hint at the existence of a second planet in the system with an orbital period near 200 days, but this has not been proven
Perhaps the biggest obstacle to life on the planet, Barnes writes, is the brightness of its host star. Proxima Centauri, a red dwarf star, is comparatively dim, but wasn't always so.
“Proxima's brightness evolution has been slow and complicated,” Barnes writes. “Stellar evolution models all predict that for the first one billion years Proxima slowly dimmed to its current brightness, which implies that for about the first quarter of a billion years, planet b's surface would have been too hot for Earth-like conditions.”
Barnes notes that he and UW graduate student Rodrigo Luger recently showed that had modern Earth been in such a situation, “it would have become a Venus-like world, in a runaway greenhouse state that can destroy all of the planet's primordial water,” thus extinguishing any chance for life.
Next come a host of questions about the planet's makeup, location and history, and the team's work toward discerning answers.
Is the planet “rocky” like Earth? Most orbits simulated by the planetary lab suggest it could be — and thus can host water in liquid form, a prerequisite for life.
Where did it form, and was there water? Whether it formed in place or further from its star, where ice is more likely, planetary lab researchers believe it “entirely possible” Proxima b could be water-rich, though they are not certain.
Did it start out as a hydrogen-enveloped Neptune-like planet and then lose its hydrogen to become Earth-like? Planetary laboratory research shows this is indeed possible, and could be a viable pathway to habitability.
Proxima Centauri flares more often than our sun; might such flares have long-since burned away atmospheric ozone that might protect the surface and any life? This is possible, though a strong magnetic field, as Earth has, could protect the surface. Also, any life under even a few meters of liquid water would be protected from radiation.
Another concern is that the planet might be tidally locked, meaning one side permanently faces its star, as the moon does Earth. Astronomers long thought this to mean a world could not support life, but now believe planetwide atmospheric winds would transport heat around the planet.
“These questions are central to unlocking Proxima's potential habitability and determining if our nearest galactic neighbor is an inhospitable wasteland, an inhabited planet, or a future home for humanity,” Barnes writes.
Planetary lab researchers also are developing techniques to determine whether Proxima b's atmosphere is amenable to life.
“Nearly all the components of an atmosphere imprint their presence in a spectrum (of light),” Barnes writes. “So with our knowledge of the possible histories of this planet, we can begin to develop instruments and plan observations that pinpoint the critical differences.”
At high enough pressures, he notes, oxygen molecules can momentarily bind to each other to produce an observable feature in the light spectrum. “Crucially, the pressures required to be detectable are large enough to discriminate between a planet with too much oxygen, and one with just the right amount for life. As we learn more about the planet and the system, we can build a library of possible spectra from which to quantitatively determine how likely it is that life exists on planet b.”
Our own Sun is expected to burn out in about 4 billion years, but Proxima Centauri has a much better forecast, perhaps burning for 4 trillion years longer.
“Whether habitable or not,” Barnes concluded, “Proxima Centauri b offers a new glimpse into how the planets and life fit into our universe.”
The Daily Galaxy via University of Washington and PaleRedDot.org
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The solar system could be thrown into disaster when the sun dies if the mysterious ‘Planet Nine' exists, according to research from the University of Warwick. Physicist Dimitri Veras at the University of Warwick has discovered that the presence of Planet Nine could cause the elimination of at least one of the giant planets after the sun dies, hurling them out into interstellar space through a sort of ‘pinball' effect.
When the sun starts to die in around seven billion years, it will blow away half of its own mass and inflate itself — swallowing the Earth — before fading into an ember known as a white dwarf. This mass ejection will push Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune out to what was assumed a safe distance.
However, Veras has discovered that the existence of Planet Nine could rewrite this happy ending. He found that Planet Nine might not be pushed out in the same way, and in fact might instead be thrust inward into a death dance with the solar system's four known giant planets — most notably Uranus and Neptune. The most likely result is ejection from the solar system, forever.
Using a unique code that can simulate the death of planetary systems, Dr. Veras has mapped numerous different positions where a ‘Planet Nine' could change the fate of the solar system. The further away and the more massive the planet is, the higher the chance that the solar system will experience a violent future.
This discovery could shed light on planetary architectures in different solar systems. Almost half of existing white dwarfs contain rock, a potential signature of the debris generated from a similarly calamitous fate in other systems with distant “Planet Nines” of their own.
In effect, the future death of our sun could explain the evolution of other planetary systems. Veras explains the danger that Planet Nine could create: "The existence of a distant massive planet could fundamentally change the fate of the solar system. Uranus and Neptune in particular may no longer be safe from the death throes of the Sun. The fate of the solar system would depend on the mass and orbital properties of Planet Nine, if it exists."
"The future of the Sun may be foreshadowed by white dwarfs that are 'polluted' by rocky debris. Planet Nine could act as a catalyst for the pollution. The Sun's future identity as a white dwarf that could be 'polluted' by rocky debris may reflect current observations of other white dwarfs throughout the Milky Way," Dr Veras adds.
The paper ‘The fates of solar system analogues with one additional distant planet' will be published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
The Daily Galaxy via University of Warwick
Image credit: wikimedia.org
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Where terrestrial life on Earth got its phosphorus has been a mystery. University of Arizona scientists have discovered that meteorites, particularly iron meteorites, may have been critical to the evolution of life on Earth. Their research shows that meteorites easily could have provided more phosphorus than naturally occurs on Earth — enough phosphorus to give rise to biomolecules which eventually assembled into living, replicating organisms.
Because phosphorus is much rarer in the environment than in life, understanding the behavior of phosphorus on the early Earth gives clues to life's origin.
Phosphorus is central to life. It forms the backbone of DNA and RNA because it connects these molecules' genetic bases into long chains. It is vital to metabolism because it is linked with life's fundamental fuel, adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the energy that powers growth and movement. And phosphorus is part of living architecture it is in the phospholipids that make up cell walls and in the bones of vertebrates.
"In terms of mass, phosphorus is the fifth most important biologic element, after carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen," said Matthew A. Pasek, at the University of Arizona's planetary sciences department and Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. "But where terrestrial life got its phosphorus has been a mystery," he added.
Phosphorus is much rarer in nature than are hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen. Pasek cites recent studies that show there's approximately one phosphorus atom for every 2.8 million hydrogen atoms in the cosmos, every 49 million hydrogen atoms in the oceans, and every 203 hydrogen atoms in bacteria. Similarly, there's a single phosphorus atom for every 1,400 oxygen atoms in the cosmos, every 25 million oxygen atoms in the oceans, and 72 oxygen atoms in bacteria. The numbers for carbon atoms and nitrogen atoms, respectively, per single phosphorus atom are 680 and 230 in the cosmos, 974 and 633 in the oceans, and 116 and 15 in bacteria.
The most common terrestrial form of the element is a mineral called apatite. When mixed with water, apatite releases only very small amounts of phosphate. Scientists have tried heating apatite to high temperatures, combining it with various strange, super-energetic compounds, even experimenting with phosphorous compounds unknown on Earth. This research hasn't explained where life's phosphorus comes from, Pasek noted.
Pasek began working with Dante Lauretta, UA assistant professor of planetary sciences, on the idea that meteorites are the source of living Earth's phosphorus. The work was inspired by Lauretta's earlier experiments that showed that phosphorus became concentrated at metal surfaces that corroded in the early solar system.
"This natural mechanism of phosphorus concentration in the presence of a known organic catalyst (such as iron-based metal) made me think that aqueous corrosion of meteoritic minerals could lead to the formation of important phosphorus-bearing biomolecules," Lauretta said.
"Meteorites have several different minerals that contain phosphorus," Pasek said. "The most important one, which we've worked with most recently, is iron-nickel phosphide, known as schreibersite."
Schreibersite is a metallic compound that is extremely rare on Earth. But it is ubiquitous in meteorites, especially iron meteorites, which are peppered with schreibersite grains or slivered with pinkish-colored schreibersite veins.
"We saw a whole slew of different phosphorus compounds being formed," Pasek said. "One of the most interesting ones we found was P2-O7 (two phorphorus atoms with seven oxygen atoms), one of the more biochemically useful forms of phosphate, similar to what's found in ATP."
Previous experiments have formed P2-07, but at high temperature or under other extreme conditions, not by simply dissolving a mineral in room-temperature water, Pasek said.
"This allows us to somewhat constrain where the origins of life may have occurred," he said. "If you are going to have phosphate-based life, it likely would have had to occur near a freshwater region where a meteorite had recently fallen. We can go so far, maybe, as to say it was an iron meteorite. Iron meteorites have from about 10 to 100 times as much schreibersite as do other meteorites.
"I think meteorites were critical for the evolution of life because of some of the minerals, especially the P2-07 compound, which is used in ATP, in photosynthesis, in forming new phosphate bonds with organics (carbon-containing compounds), and in a variety of other biochemical processes," Pasek said.
"I think one of the most exciting aspects of this discovery is the fact that iron meteorites form by the process of planetesimal differentiation," Lauretta said. That is, the building-blocks of planets, called planestesmals, form both a metallic core and a silicate mantle. Iron meteorites represent the metallic core, and other types of meteorites, called achondrites, represent the mantle.
"No one ever realized that such a critical stage in planetary evolution could be coupled to the origin of life," he added. "This result constrains where, in our solar system and others, life could originate. It requires an asteroid belt where planetesimals can grow to a critical size around 500 kilometers in diameter and a mechanism to disrupt these bodies and deliver them to the inner solar system."
Jupiter drives the delivery of planetesimals to our inner solar system, Lauretta said, thereby limiting the chances that outer solar system planets and moons will be supplied with the reactive forms of phosphorus used by biomolecules essential to terrestrial life.
Solar systems that lack a Jupiter-sized object that can perturb mineral-rich asteroids inward toward terrestrial planets also have dim prospects for developing life, Lauretta added.
The Daily Galaxy via University of Arizona and astrobio.net
Image credit: Tohoku University
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For years, astronomers have puzzled over a massive star lodged deep in the Milky Way that shows conflicting signs of being extremely old and extremely young. Researchers initially classified the star as elderly, perhaps a red supergiant. But a new study by a NASA-led team of researchers suggests that the object, labeled IRAS 19312+1950, might be something quite different - a protostar, a star still in the making.
"Astronomers recognized this object as noteworthy around the year 2000 and have been trying ever since to decide how far along its development is," said Martin Cordiner, an astrochemist working at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. He is the lead author of a paper in the Astrophysical Journal describing the team's findings, from observations made using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and ESA's Herschel Space Observatory.
Located more than 12,000 light-years from Earth, the object first stood out as peculiar when it was observed at particular radio frequencies. Several teams of astronomers studied it using ground-based telescopes and concluded that it is an oxygen-rich star about 10 times as massive as the sun. The question was: What kind of star?
Some researchers favor the idea that the star is evolved - past the peak of its life cycle and on the decline. For most of their lives, stars obtain their energy by fusing hydrogen in their cores, as the sun does now. But older stars have used up most of their hydrogen and must rely on heavier fuels that don't last as long, leading to rapid deterioration.
Two early clues - intense radio sources called masers - suggested the star was old. In astronomy, masers occur when the molecules in certain kinds of gases get revved up and emit a lot of radiation over a very limited range of frequencies. The result is a powerful radio beacon - the microwave equivalent of a laser.
One maser observed with IRAS 19312+1950 is almost exclusively associated with late-stage stars. This is the silicon oxide maser, produced by molecules made of one silicon atom and one oxygen atom. Researchers don't know why this maser is nearly always restricted to elderly stars, but of thousands of known silicon oxide masers, only a few exceptions to this rule have been noted.
Also spotted with the star was a hydroxyl maser, produced by molecules comprised of one oxygen atom and one hydrogen atom. Hydroxyl masers can occur in various kinds of astronomical objects, but when one occurs with an elderly star, the radio signal has a distinctive pattern - it's especially strong at a frequency of 1612 megahertz. That's the pattern researchers found in this case.
Even so, the object didn't entirely fit with evolved stars. Especially puzzling was the smorgasbord of chemicals found in the large cloud of material surrounding the star. A chemical-rich cloud like this is typical of the regions where new stars are born, but no such stellar nursery had been identified near this star.
Scientists initially proposed that the object was an old star surrounded by a surprising cloud typical of the kind that usually accompanies young stars. Another idea was that the observations might somehow be capturing two objects: a very old star and an embryonic cloud of star-making material in the same field.
Cordiner and his colleagues began to reconsider the object, conducting observations using ESA's Herschel Space Observatory and analyzing data gathered earlier with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Both telescopes operate at infrared wavelengths, which gave the team new insight into the gases, dust and ices in the cloud surrounding the star.
The additional information leads Cordiner and colleagues to think the star is in a very early stage of formation. The object is much brighter than it first appeared, they say, emitting about 20,000 times the energy of our sun. The team found large quantities of ices made from water and carbon dioxide in the cloud around the object. These ices are located on dust grains relatively close to the star, and all this dust and ice blocks out starlight making the star seem dimmer than it really is.
In addition, the dense cloud around the object appears to be collapsing, which happens when a growing star pulls in material. In contrast, the material around an evolved star is expanding and is in the process of escaping to the interstellar medium. The entire envelope of material has an estimated mass of 500 to 700 suns, which is much more than could have been produced by an elderly or dying star.
"We think the star is probably in an embryonic stage, getting near the end of its accretion stage - the period when it pulls in new material to fuel its growth," said Cordiner.
Also supporting the idea of a young star are the very fast wind speeds measured in two jets of gas streaming away from opposite poles of the star. Such jets of material, known as a bipolar outflow, can be seen emanating from young or old stars. However, fast, narrowly focused jets are rarely observed in evolved stars. In this case, the team measured winds at the breakneck speed of at least 200,000 miles per hour (90 kilometers per second) - a common characteristic of a protostar.
Still, the researchers acknowledge that the object is not a typical protostar. For reasons they can't explain yet, the star has spectacular features of both a very young and a very old star.
"No matter how one looks at this object, it's fascinating, and it has something new to tell us about the life cycles of stars," said Steven Charnley, a Goddard astrochemist and co-author of the paper.
The Daily Galaxy via NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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europeanspaceagency posted a photo:
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At the centre of this image, captured by ESA's Herschel space observatory , is a truly peculiar cosmic object: a star named IRAS 19312+1950.
Located over 12 000 light-years from us, this star has puzzled astronomers for many years because it shows conflicting signs of being both extremely old and extremely young.
Astronomers have spotted signs of emission usually associated with old, late-type stars: silicon oxide and hydroxyl masers the microwave equivalent of a visible-light laser.
But they have also discovered characteristics mostly seen around early-type stars: a chemical-rich enveloping cloud usually seen around youthful stars and in regions of star formation.
Infrared observations from both Herschel and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope now suggest that it may instead be a star in the making, rather than a fully-fledged or ancient star. In other words, it is a protostar.
The star is about 10 times as massive as the Sun and emits about 20 000 times as much energy. It appears to be rich in oxygen, and has jets of gas streaming from both poles at speeds of at least 90 km/s.
In addition, it is surrounded and obscured by a collapsing cloud of gas, dust and ice including large quantities of water and carbon dioxide ice that contains an overall mass equivalent to 500 to 700 Suns.
Although it displays features atypical of its peers, astronomers believe it to be a stellar embryo fast approaching the end of its ‘accretion' stage, the period in which it feeds upon surrounding material to fuel its growth. Although the region had not been pinpointed as a stellar nursery before, there are signs of recently formed and youthful stars nearby, supporting this idea.
This image is a composite of infrared data gathered by Herschel's Photoconductor Array Camera and Spectrometer (PACS ) at 70 (green) and 160 (blue) microns. The associated research is published in the Astrophysical Journal.
Credit: ESA/Herschel/PACS/Hi-GAL Project, KU Leuven
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Bush katydid nymph (Scudderia curvicauda) collected in Kejimkujik National Park, Nova Scotia, Canada, and photographed at the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics (sample ID: BIOUG19497-D02; specimen record: http://www.boldsystems.org/index.php/Public_RecordView?processid=SSKJC3622-15; BIN: http://www.boldsystems.org/index.php/Public_BarcodeCluster?clusteruri=BOLD:ACW0241)
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In 2012, scientists observed that of 20 species of fungus-growing ant, including leaf-cutting ants (above), a majority cover juveniles—eggs , larvae and pupae—in mycelia from the fungus they grow. Now, scientists believe this fungal cocoon protects the juvenile ants from parasitic fungus. (University of Wisconsin photo)
In the dark recesses of an underground fungus garden, a Panamanian leaf-cutting ant plucks a tuft of mycelia, the wispy part of the basidiomycete fungus these ants grow and eat, and carries it to a nearby ant pupa. The ant licks the pupa's body before patting the fungus into place, continuing until it appears, when viewed under a powerful microscope, as though the pupa is webbed in short strands of spaghetti.
Odd behavior perhaps, but leaf-cutting ants aren't the only ants to cover their pupae in mycelia. In a 2012 study scientists showed that of 20 species of fungus-growing ant (including the leaf-cutting ant), the majority cover juveniles—eggs, larvae and pupae—in mycelia. The research, published in the journal Evolution, was authored by Hermógenes Fernández-Marín of the University of Copenhagen, the Institute of Scientific Research and High Technology Services and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute; William T. Wcislo, senior staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute; and Sophie A. O. Armitage and Jacobus J. Boomsma of the University of Copenhagen.
Video: At center screen are larvae and pupae of the leaf-cutting ant A. echinatior covered in a protective coating of the basidiomycete fungus these ants grow and eat. At top are eggs awaiting their protective fungus covering. (Video by Rita Marissa Giovani)
“This [finding] was nice because the fungi is really the food for the ant, but in this context the ants co-opt the fungi for protection,” Fernández-Marín says.
In 2012, scientists weren't certain what exactly the mycelial cover was protecting the ants against. Now, they may have an answer: The fungal cocoon impedes a parasitic fungus. In a new study in the Journal of Animal Ecology, Fernández-Marín, Wcislo, Armitage and Boomsma suggest that for the leaf-cutting ant Acromyrmex echinatior, this fungal cocoon slows down a known enemy: the parasitic fungus Metarhizium brunneum.
While an ant is out foraging, spores of this parasitic fungus can land on it, burrow through its outer covering, called a cuticle, and invade the ant's body. The fungus then proliferates and kills its host. With tens of thousands of ants tromping around the colony, the parasitic fungus could easily spread through contact, with disastrous results.
Video: At center screen are larvae and pupae of the leaf-cutting ant A. echinatior covered in the basidiomycete fungus these ants grow and eat. At top of screen are two eggs without the protective fungus covering. (Video by Rita Marissa Giovani)
Luckily, A. echinatior ants have developed multiple ways of bolstering themselves—and their colony—against infection. Their bodies house different chemical weapons. In a gland on their back, they store antimicrobial compounds, and on their bodies they host antibiotic-producing microbes. Now it seems this fungal cocoon is “an extra arrow in their quiver of antimicrobial strategies,” Wcislo says.
How does the fungal cocoon work? It seems to slow the growth of the parasitic fungus. In experiments, the researchers brushed the protective basidiomycete fungus from the abdomens of some of the pupae and left others with their fungus intact. They then added parasitic spores on a small patch of abdomen using the tip of a pencil. They observed that the parastitic fungus grew faster on the bare-bellied pupae.
“I was surprised that this is possible,” says Peter Biedermann from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, who was not involved in this research. “That you can really see the fungus mycelium covering on the brood and you can brush off mycelium from some body parts is interesting.”
!["ant]("http://www.antwiki.org/wiki/File:Acromyrmex_echinatior_casent0909422_h_1_high.jpg")
Close-up of the head of the leaf cutting ant “Acromyrmex echinatior” (Photo by Will Ericson, AntWeb.org)
The mycelial cover plays a key role in defending the overall health of the colony. “It's probably stretching the analogy a bit too far, but it's almost as if these mycelial covers act as a sort of miniature quarantine, it seems, which might just reduce the rate of contact between uninfecteds and infecteds, or it might just slow the rate of transmission of spores,” Wcislo says.
Either way, the mycelial cover appears to work in combination with the ants' other methods for fending off infection. Fernández-Marín and Wcislo are now working to find out how the ants employ their different antimicrobial techniques depending on the type of pathogen that threatens them.
It also still remains to be seen if, when an ant pats mycelia onto a pupa, it is actually planting them there. It could be that the protective fungus grows on the pupa, fed by the pupa's secretions. If so, it may make sense to think of these pupae as a new type of Chia Pet—one in which the pet, too, is alive.
The post Mystery solved? Ants Protect Young From Infection By Cocooning Them in Fungus appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.
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US one sheet for THE ADVENTURE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES' SMARTER BROTHER (Gene Wilder, USA, 1975)
Artist: John Alvin
Poster source: Heritage Auctions
R.I.P. GENE WILDER (1933-2016)
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German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel recently claimed negotiations over the planned trans-Atlantic free trade agreement had fallen apart. US Trade Representative Michael Froman says that's incorrect and argues now is the time for unity. sailor4242@rocketmail.com posted a photo:
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Thames barrier looking towards Docklands
DNA has been sequenced in space for the first time during a series of experiments performed last weekend by biologist-turned-NASA astronaut, Kate Rubins.…
![]("https://media.science360.gov/files/pic-day/2fea2951-652c-4c9f-b6c1-08c209a3a977-largeImage.jpg")
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The dome at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station is framed by ridges of snow called sastrugi. These sharp, irregular, grooves or ridges are formed on a snow surface by wind erosion, saltation of snow particles and deposition, and found in polar and open sites such as frozen lakes in cold temperate regions. The ridges are perpendicular to the prevailing winds; they are steep on the windward side and sloping to the leeward side. Amundsen-Scott is one of three U.S. research stations on the Antarctic continent. All of the stations are operated by the National Science Foundation's U.S. Antarctic Program.
Image credit: Bill McAfee, National Science Foundation
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A small asteroid made a rare, close pass between Earth and the moon on August 28.…
![]("https://media.science360.gov/files/story/53c5188a-fc1e-4028-9c0c-005974f9e5d9-largeImage.jpg")
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Tomatoes are already an ideal model species for plant research, but National Science Foundation-funded scientists just made them even more useful by cutting the time required to modify their genes by six weeks. While looking for ways to make tomatoes and other crop plants more productive, the researchers developed a better method for “transforming” a tomato -- a process that involves inserting DNA into the tomato genome and growing a new plant. By adding the plant hormone auxin to the medium that supports the growth of the cells, they can speed up the plant's growth, ultimately accelerating the pace of their research.
Image credit: Sheryl Sinkow, Boyce Thompson Institute
At best, just 2,500 Indochinese leopards survive today across Southeast Asia. They have been eradicated from 93% of their historic habitat by snares, poachers, deforestation and declines in prey. Can conservationists stop the bleeding before its too late?
Conservationists have long known that it's hard and in some cases nearly impossible to survive as a tiger in Southeast Asia. Burning forests, high human populations and unflagging demand for tiger blood, tiger skin and crushed tiger bone means the big cats have to tread a daily gauntlet of snares, guns and desperate poachers. Now, conservationists are discovering, belatedly, that the same is largely true for leopards.
A sobering new study in Biological Conservation has found that the Indochinese leopard a distinct subspecies may be down to less than 1,000 individuals. And in the best-case scenario only 2,500 animals survive less than the population of Farmsfield village in Nottinghamshire.
The black coat of melanistic leopards may have made them ‘perfect stalkers' in the dimly-lit rainforests
Related: Tiger country? Scientists uncover wild surprises in tribal Bangladesh
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American alligators and South African crocodiles populate waterways a third of the globe apart, and yet both have detectable levels of long-lived industrial and household compounds for nonstick coatings in their blood, according to two studies from researchers at the Hollings Marine Laboratory in Charleston, South Carolina, and its affiliated institutions, which include the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
The two studies are first-of-their-kind examinations of PFAA levels in “sentinel” reptile species, especially useful for investigating the impacts of long-lived chemicals in the environment, NIST says in a news statement about the research. PFAAs (perfluorinated alkyl acids) have been used in products that include water-repellent clothes, stain repellents, waxes, nonstick pans and fire-suppressing foams.
Compounds Associated With Liver Toxicity, Reduced Fertility
“Production of some compounds in this family of environmentally persistent chemicalsassociated with liver toxicity, reduced fertility and a variety of other health problems in studies of people and animalshas been phased out in the United States and many other nations. Yet all blood plasma samples drawn from 125 American alligators across 12 sites in Florida and South Carolina contained at least six of the 15 PFAAs that were tracked in the alligator study,” the NIST release says.
Excerpted from the news statement:
!["Photograph]("http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/files/2016/08/Alligator-David-Braun-600x450.jpg")
In alligators, plasma levels of perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) ranged from 1,360 to 452,000 parts per trillion. In May 2016, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a drinking-water health advisory for PFOS and another PFAA, recommending a maximum exposure level of 70 parts per trillion for one of the PFAAs or the sum of the two. High PFOS levels reported for alligators at several sites may suggest the need to test drinking water for contamination at those locations, according to the researchers.
In a separate study, researchers report that all samples drawn from 45 crocodiles at five sites in and around South Africa's Kruger National Park contained detectable levels of four PFAAs, often in different combinations with other of the 15 fluorinated organic compounds tracked. Present in all plasma samples, PFOS levels ranged from 776 to 118,000 parts per trillion.
!["Photograph]("http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/files/2016/08/Nile-crocodile_David-Braun-600x356.jpg")
“Alligators and crocodiles play a dominant role in their ecosystems,” said Jacqueline Bangma, of the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. “Similar to humans, they are long-lived top predators. They stay in a select territorywaterways where runoff from human activities accumulates and their PFAA burden increases through the consumption of fish.”
To date, field studies of PFAA levels and health effects in reptiles have been few, focusing mostly on sea turtles. Across studies of animalsfrom rats to frogs to marine mammalsplasma levels, time required to eliminate PFAAs from the body, and health effects vary greatly, making it difficult to extrapolate from one species to another.
The landmark studies were initiated by the Hollings Marine Laboratory, a partnership including NIST, NOAA's National Ocean Service, the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, the College of Charleston, and the Medical University of South Carolina. Plans are to continue PFAA monitoring on both continents, according to NIST research chemist Jessica Reiner.
Hot Spots Identified
Both studies identified “hot spots,” where PFAA levels were significantly higher than in animals tested at other sites, an indication that the contaminants were emitted by a nearby source. In the U.S. study, median plasma levels of certain PFAAs were highest in alligators on Kiawah Island, an Atlantic Ocean barrier island southwest of Charleston, South Carolina, and on Merritt Island in Florida.
Past use of PFAA-containing foams, such as those employed in firefighting training, may account for the higher levels, the researchers suggest. High environmental concentrations have been reported at fire-training sites and at manufacturing plants.
In contrast, alligators at two sites in the Florida Everglades exhibited some of the lowest levels of the two “highest burden” PFAAs reported across all adult alligators sampled in the U.S. study. The result was somewhat unexpected, Reiner said, because Everglade's alligators have been reported to have some of the highest levels of mercury, a toxic heavy metal, among Florida alligators.
Among the South African crocodiles tested, PFAA levels were highest for animals tested from Flag Boshielo Dam, a reservoir on the Oliphants River, just upstream from Kruger National Park.
Among the American alligators studied, some PFAA levels tended to be higher among males, regardless of locations. Levels also tended to increase with age, as determined by snout length. Age- and sex-related associations with PFAA levels were not found in the crocodiles sampled.
Articles:
I. Christie, J.L. Reiner, J.A. Bowden, H. Botha, T.M. Cantu, D. Govender, M.P. Guillettee, R.H. Lowers, W.J. Luus-Powell, D. Pienaar, W.J. Smit and L.J. Guillette Jr. Perfluorinated alkyl acids in the plasma of South African crocodiles (Crocodylus niloticus). Chemosphere. Published: July 2016. DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2016.03.072.
J.T. Bangma, J.A. Bowden, A.M. Brunell, I. Christie, B. Finnell, M.P. Guillette, M. Jones, R.H. Lowers, T.R. Rainwater, J.L. Reiner, P.M. Wilkinson and L.J. Guillette, Jr. Perfluorinated alkyl acids in plasma of American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis) from Florida and South Carolina. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. Accepted manuscript online: August 20, 2016. doi:10.1002/etc.3600
!["12418031_10153900711084116_8462971761216697621_n"]("http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/files/2008/12/12418031_10153900711084116_8462971761216697621_n.jpg")
David Braun is director of outreach with the digital and social media team illuminating the National Geographic Society's explorer, science, and education programs.
He edits National Geographic Voices, hosting a global discussion on issues resonating with the Society's mission and major initiatives. Contributors include grantees and Society partners, as well as universities, foundations, interest groups, and individuals dedicated to a sustainable world. More than 50,000 readers have participated in 10,000 conversations.
Braun also directs the Society side of the Fulbright-National Geographic Digital Storytelling Fellowship.
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Tower Bridge in London on a beautiful sunny day
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Tower Bridge in London on a beautiful sunny day
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Tower Bridge in London on a beautiful sunny day
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Tower Bridge in London on a beautiful sunny day
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Tower Bridge in London on a beautiful sunny day
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Tower Bridge in London on a beautiful sunny day
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Big Ben and Houses of parliament at dusk, London, UK
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Big Ben and Houses of parliament at dusk, London, UK
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Big Ben and Houses of parliament at dusk, London, UK
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European satellite operator SES will trust its latest hardware to a SpaceX Falcon rocket that has already made it into space once.…
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Rodrigo Duterte, President of the Philippines since June 30, has continued his bloody war on illegal drugs, resulting in more than 2,000 violent deaths over the past two months at the hands of law enforcement, vigilante groups, and other unidentified actors. Human rights groups and the United Nations have condemned the extrajudicial killings, with the UN stating that the campaign amounts to a crime under international law. According to a report from Reuters, “close to 900 drug traffickers and users had been killed in police operations from July 1 to August 20...on average 20 people a day.” Editor's note: many of the following images are graphic in nature.
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Iranian Cheetah Society says situation is critical as numbers of the subspecies continue to dwindle
Conservationists say only two female Asiatic cheetahs are known to be alive in the wild in Iran, which hosts the last surviving population.
Asiatic cheetahs, also known as Iranian cheetahs, are a subspecies of the fastest animal on earth and classified as critically endangered, with fewer than 40 believed to remain in Iran.
Related: India mourns crocodile-wrestling 'Queen mother' of tigers
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