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Colors by Juan I. Cuadrado  

Colors by Juan I. Cuadrado

Puesta de sol en la Montaña de Riaño. Sunset in Riaño Mountains.

Juan I. Cuadrado: Photos

 
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Ceres' Mountain Ahuna Mons: Side View  
Ceres' lonely mountain, Ahuna Mons, is seen in this simulated perspective view. The elevation has been exaggerated by a factor of two. The view was made using enhanced-color images from NASA's Dawn mission.  
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Hurricanes Madeline and Lester  
The island of Hawaii rarely takes a direct hit from a hurricane. This week, two Pacific storms are lining up to change that. This natural-color image of Hurricane Madeline and Hurricane Lester is a composite built from two overpasses by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite on the Suomi NPP satellite on August 29, 2016.  
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Shedd Aquarium's World of Water: What It Takes to Keep a Quality Environment for Animals  
For a bunch of air-breathers, those of us trusted to keep our animals healthy and thriving are up to our "gills" as we're tasked to think about our water quality at Shedd Aquarium. As we near the end of National Water Quality Month, it's important to reflect and think about why water quality is a critical issue 365 days a year, not just during the month of August.


Allen LaPointe, Vice President of Environmental Quality at Shedd Aquarium, takes a sample of the water in the Abbott Oceanarium.

Animals - whether in an aquarium environment or in a native environment - have no control over the quality of the water around them. We do. As a result, we have an obligation to ensure the very best water quality possible. At Shedd, this means putting the right water for the right purpose in the right place. That's no small task! Water comes in all forms at Shedd - clear, cloudy, salt, fresh, warm, cold - the list goes on! These conditions are carefully analyzed and adjusted as needed to create the best home for the animals that spend their lives swimming inside it.

How do we do that? We start in our own backyard, in the same waters of Lake Michigan that millions of people in the Chicagoland area use daily to drink, clean and cook with. All water that we use for our habitats at Shedd is first put through a massive charcoal filter - think about a home water filtration system, and multiply that by about 10,000. That's where the water for our habitats begins its journey. This removes impurities like chlorine, which can be poisonous to our amphibians and fish. From there, we apply a variety of techniques to purify this water, like running it through a reverse osmosis membrane - a very specialized filter that removes dissolved salts and other molecules that even charcoal can't capture. This process is necessary in our Amazon Rising habitats because Amazon river water in the native habitat is known to be very low in dissolved salts and we must replicate that for animals that have evolved in that type of water.

But that's just the start. Next, we must ensure the water is the right mix for the right habitat. Our Caribbean Reef exhibit - home to rescued sea turtle Nickel, stingrays and bonnethead sharks - requires added salts and warmer temperatures. For habitats that house endangered coral, calcium is added and phosphorus is filtered in to ensure a quality environment. These additions, subtractions and changes to the variety of environments are constantly monitored by a team of Environmental Quality Technicians - and supported by more than 60 volunteers! - who continuously test the water inside the habitats in our Environmental Quality Lab.

Through this research, we are constantly applying what we have learned and adjusting the way we do things. Over the past few years, we been exploring whether we could "recycle" some water from habitats within Shedd without impacting the health of our animals. Through careful testing, we have been able to reduce our water footprint by transferring water from some of our gallery spaces into our Oceanarium, therefore a decrease in the amount of water we take in and put out.

Beyond the day-to-day monitoring of water quality within Shedd, we're diving even deeper. While the chemical composition is important to keeping our animals healthy, we're also closely examining the biological communities that share the water with our animals. The Aquarium Microbiome Project has begun studying the vast yet microscopic ecological communities within Shedd's water. This includes closely examining how these tiny bacteria, viruses and fungi interact with our animals, and the results have been fascinating. While we sometimes think of these communities as simply "germs," we have found they can be incredibly beneficial, if not essential, to the health of our animals. In fact, we recently studied the microbiotic makeup of the water in our Stingray Touch experience. Despite these animals being touched by more than 400,000 human hands through the course of the season, the results proved this experience has no negative effects on the animals. It actually improved some of the indicators of health and welfare like heart rate!

At Shedd Aquarium caring for the quality of water animals live in and depend on does not stop at the front doors. It's extremely important that we as a species are constantly aware of our impact on the water systems we - and all animals - rely on around the world. Choosing public transportation, participating in beach clean-ups, avoiding products that contain microbeads and refraining from disposing of medications down the drain are all examples of small but important steps we can take to improve water quality at home, and by extension, around the world.

Bill Van Bonn, DVM, is Shedd Aquarium's vice president of animal health. With more than 25 years of clinical veterinary experience, Dr. Van Bonn strengthens the aquarium's established animal care and health expertise, overseeing its diverse aquatic medicine initiatives as well as furthering innovative veterinary science at Shedd. Dr. Van Bonn specializes in preventive medicine and enhanced clinical veterinary services for aquatic animals, with a focus on marine mammals. At Shedd, he focuses on providing top-quality care and applying his knowledge of animal health to conservation of their counterparts in the wild. He also oversees the aquarium's Microbiome Project.

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Watch SpaceX's rocket dramatically detonate, destroying a $200m Facebook satellite  

That'll buff right out, no worries

Video Elon Musk has confirmed that today's SpaceX rocket explosion which destroyed a $200m satellite was caused by a cockup during fueling.…

 
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Rosetta images cometary dust in 3D  
Results could shed more light on processes during the solar system's formation  
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Dolphin Project On The Ground As Taiji's Hunting Season Begins  
Fourteen years ago when Dolphin Project first stepped foot onto the shores of The Cove, I committed to exposing the brutal slaughter that takes place there every year. And I haven't stopped since.

This year, as in other years, we are the only organization on the ground. In fact, since 2003, we are the only organization to have had a constant presence in Taiji during the dolphin hunting season.

Although a 19-day incarceration last winter, resulting in my deportation from Japan will prevent me from personally going, our team of Dolphin Project Cove Monitors will be on the ground throughout the entire killing season to live stream and disseminate information to the rest of the world. I do plan on being able to visit Japan again, a country that I love, and Dolphin Project is currently appealing the deportation through the Japanese legal system.

Every year from approximately September 1 to March 1, a notoriously cruel hunt of some of the most sentient and sensitive creatures on the planet takes place in Taiji, Japan, made famous by the 2009 Academy award-winning movie "The Cove." During this period, fisherman, or more appropriately, dolphin hunters, "drive" the mammals to their capture or deaths via means of physical violence and acoustic torture.



The Japanese government's official quota is 1,820 dolphins of various species. Trainers, working alongside hunters, will also select approximately 150 wild bottlenose dolphins, "presold" to marine parks in Japan and overseas - a process where an untold number of animals are injured and/or killed, their numbers never recorded.

They used to do this in Futo and Iki Island too. The only reason they stopped is because they killed them all. I'm afraid the same thing is going to happen in Taiji. It's genocide.

As I write this, I am in London for Japan Dolphins Day - one of 50 events across the world where thousands of people will voice their opposition against the Taiji dolphin slaughters.

Together, we WILL end this.

How You Can Help



Interested in joining our team as a Dolphin Project Cove Monitor?
Click here to submit your application free of charge.




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Dolphin Project is the only organization to have been on the ground in Taiji since 2003. We have revolutionized live streaming and broadcast throughout the entire season.

Ric O'Barry's Dolphin Project is a non-profit charitable organization, dedicated to the welfare and protection of dolphins worldwide. Founded by Richard (Ric) O'Barry on Earth Day, April 22, 1970, the mission of the Dolphin Project is to end dolphin exploitation and slaughter, as dolphins are routinely captured, harassed, slaughtered and sold into captivity around the world - all in the name of profit.

Dolphin Project works not only to halt these slaughters but also to rehabilitate captive dolphins, investigate and advocate for economic alternatives to dolphin slaughter exploitation and to put a permanent end to dolphin captivity. This work has been chronicled in films such as, 'A Fall From Freedom,' the Oscar-winning documentary 'The Cove,' and in the Animal Planet mini-series, 'Blood Dolphin$.'

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Reflections on the Anthropocene  
"However these debates will unfold, the Anthropocene represents a new phase in the history of both humankind and of the Earth, when natural forces and human forces became intertwined, so that the fate of one determines the fate of the other. Geologically, this is a remarkable episode in the history of this planet."

This is a little too big to simply call "news." Indeed, I can't move beyond these words -- especially that heart-stopper, "intertwined" -- until I'm able to summon sufficient inner quiet and humility. Geologically, the paradigm has already shifted. How about spiritually?

The words are those of four geologists and climate scientists, including Nobel Prize-winning atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen, writing in 2010 in the journal Environmental Science & Technology (and quoted at phys.org) -- making the point that the human phenomenon has become, for better and for worse, essentially partnered with nature, a co-creator of the planet's future.

This hypothesis has returned to public attention, as the International Geological Congress meets in Cape Town, South Africa, and a working panel has voted that the Anthropocene Epoch -- a planetary shift to a new geological state of existence -- be officially acknowledged by the world's scientific community. That is to say, the planet has moved beyond what has been called the Holocene: some 12,000 years of climate stability, which emerged after the last ice age. In this window of opportunity, human civilization created itself and, in the process, seized hold of, and began changing, the planet's geological infrastructure.

The current hypothesis is that the Anthropocene began, uh . . . about the time "Ozzie and Harriet" was hitting the airwaves, disposable ballpoint pens were finding their market niche and the Baby Boomers were starting kindergarten. That is to say, the 1950s.

The primary cause of the geological shift, the Guardian reports, are "the radioactive elements dispersed across the planet by nuclear bomb tests, although an array of other signals, including plastic pollution, soot from power stations, concrete, and even the bones left by the global proliferation of the domestic chicken were now under consideration."

None of this is good news. Short-sighted human behavior, from nuclear insanity to agribusiness to the proliferation of plastic trash, has produced utterly unforeseen consequences, including disruption of the climate that has nurtured our growth and becoming over the last dozen millennia. This is called recklessness. And mostly the Anthropocene is described with dystopian bleakness: a time of mass extinctions. A time of dying.

But I return to the words quoted above: ". . . the Anthropocene represents a new phase in the history of both humankind and of the Earth, when natural forces and human forces became intertwined. . . ."

What I hear in the silence of these words is something far more resonant than mere pessimism or cynicism. I hear awareness. I hear urgency. I hear hope.

I hear the largest challenge that humanity has ever faced or imagined -- a challenge that transcends religion, politics and science, indeed, everything we believe and everything we know, or think we know. This includes a belief in our own reckless immaturity.

Consider: "Human occupation is usually associated with deteriorated landscapes, but new research shows that 13,000 years of repeated occupation by British Columbia's coastal First Nations has had the opposite effect, enhancing temperate rainforest productivity."

The story, also at phys.org, talks about research data showing that the trees growing at sites formerly inhabited by the tribal peoples "are taller, wider and healthier than those in the surrounding forest," thanks to various practices, including the burying of the remains of intertidal shellfish over thousands of years, enriching the soil. "For more than 13,000 years --500 generations--people have been transforming this landscape," environmental scientist Andrew Trant is quoted as saying. "So this area that at first glance seems pristine and wild is actually highly modified and enhanced as a result of human behavior."

There are many, many examples of how "primitive" cultures have been true stewards of their environment and enhanced its health and eco-diversity, but such stories are easily dismissed with a despairing shrug: This isn't how the modern world works. Nor has eco-stewardship been the force that has brought on the Anthropocene. That has come about, rather, by a combination of extraordinary technological breakthroughs and cold indifference to their consequences: human evolution, you might say, outside the circle of life. But here we are nonetheless.

". . . when natural forces and human forces became intertwined. . . ."

It's time to grow up. Simply looking at the news in the context of the ongoing geological shift puts things in a radically different perspective. I grab, almost at random, a recent story that slapped me in the face with its absurdity: San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick sends shockwaves across spectator America when he refuses to stand for the national anthem. Fans burn replicas of his jersey.

What I see in Kaepernick's courageous act transcends even the racism he was protesting. The consciousness symbolized by the national anthem -- that only part of this planet matters, and all of it is available for our exploitation -- is what has cluelessly ushered in the Anthropocene. We need to build a new world on the far side of that consciousness: on the far side of the flag, on the far side of the national anthem.

- - -
Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated writer. Contact him at koehlercw@gmail.com or visit his website at commonwonders.com.

© 2016 TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, INC.

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In the Fight Against Climate Change, "Renewable" Energy Isn't Enough  


Flash flooding, long periods of sustained drought and even more extreme storm seasons. The impacts of climate change are already being felt here in the U.S. and around the world. We need to act fast by ending our use of fossil fuels and transition to renewable energy soon, if we're going to meet the goal set by the Paris agreement of staying under 1.5 degrees of warming.

We risk doing harm to both people and our planet though, if we support any kind of so-called renewable fuel, without fully considering the impacts. The transition away from fossil fuels must be a transition towards truly clean, community controlled renewable energy. We cannot afford to place our bets on false solutions.

In recent weeks, two new publications have helped illustrated the risk of false solutions, specifically related to the Renewable Fuel Standard (known as the RFS). This policy was put in place with good intentions in 2005 and expanded in 2007, the idea being to support a policy that provided a liquid fuel alternative to fossil fuels - particularly gas - for transportation fuels in the U.S. However, despite good intentions this law has not been good for the environment or for people living in poverty around the world.

Next-generation fuel has yet to develop in significant quantities, and so more than 10 years after the law was initially passed, we remain dependent on food and land based biofuels - particularly corn ethanol. When you take into account the total emissions from producing, processing and burning these biofuels, they often fail to reduce emissions.

But it doesn't stop there, because the RFS has helped drive the expansion of corn and soy mono-cropping in the United States. This conversion of natural grasslands to farm land has not only been bad for the planet, but undermines biodiversity of both plant and animal life. As for the impacts on people, food-based biofuels increase hunger and undermine land rights globally, as local farmers are pushed off their land to make way for biofuels plantations.

Under the RFS, the EPA is supposed to monitor the policy's impact on the environment and produce regular reports. However, the Inspector General of the Environmental Protection Agency recent audit on RFS implementation found the EPA had not fulfilled its legally mandated environmental oversight of the program.

In particular, the EPA has not produced the reports it's required to deliver on the impact the RFS is having on conservation (required every three years) and air quality (two reports no later than December of 2010). Considering evidence that food and land based biofuels hurt both, this is especially concerning.

Added to this, last Thursday, yet another study was published that found that corn ethanol is not good for the climate.

Many biofuel emissions models assume that growing and harvesting biofuels and burning them is carbon neutral. The idea is basically that the plants grown for biofuels absorb as much carbon as they emit when burned for energy. So any emissions from biofuels are from the processing of the feedstock into the fuel.

Bu this new research found that only 37% of carbon emitted through burning biofuels was absorbed by biofuel growth between 2005 and 2013. These findings suggest that the tools that environmental regulators are using to determine how environmentally-friendly biofuels like corn ethanol are, are fundamentally flawed, and ignore a significant amount of emissions.

If we're going to effectively and justly address climate change, good intentions and so-called green-solutions are not enough. Food-based biofuels will not help the planet, they'll only make things worse.

Food-based biofuels such as corn ethanol undermine food security, make air and water quality worse, and drive deforestation. In fact, corn ethanol might be worse for the planet than gasoline. This only continues the cycle that we have found ourselves in now, where energy consumption wreaks environmental and social havoc, warms the planet, but still leaves billions of people without their basic energy needs met.

The transition to renewable energy must produce truly clean, renewable energy, controlled by local communities. Renewable alone isn't enough.

Follow Kelly on Twitter: @kellystone6

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Get Smart Fast: The Social Cost of Carbon  
Early on in its tenure, the Obama Administration created a measure to quantify the costs of carbon emissions, known as the "Social Cost of Carbon" (SCC). This standard allowed agencies to calculate the benefit of policies that reduced CO2 emissions.

The impacts of climate change are wide-ranging - rising sea levels, increased droughts, higher frequency of mosquito-borne illnesses and so on - and the SCC aimed to capture all of those impacts. After extensive analysis, the government determined that the SCC is currently about $40 for each emitted ton of carbon dioxide.

The Administration has used this figure to demonstrate monetary benefits of carbon reduction in the development of regulations governing power plants, vehicle emissions and appliance efficiency standards.

The controversial measure includes layers of assumptions about global weather trends, agricultural production patterns, and even how people will respond to changing climate. Some environmentalists argue that the number is ridiculously low and should be five times higher. Industry critics argue that the figure is too uncertain to provide a basis for regulation.

In 2014, a trade association challenged the use of the SCC in court. But in a ruling earlier this month, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the Administration, strengthening the legal foundation for many environmental rules promulgated over the past several years. The SCC may not be precise, but given the consensus that climate change is having real effects on the globe, the court ruled that it was appropriate to use in policy-making.

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Ari Nessel: IN CALIFORNIA, THE YOUTH HAVE THE HEART AND VISION: ALL THEY NEED IS OUR SUPPORT  
Announcing A New Grantmaking Program for California's Youth, by California's Youth.

"Youth are organizing, youth are resisting racism, youth are weav...

Read more: Change, Compassion, Education, Environment, Generosity, Girls, Global Impact, Health Education, Hope, Kenya, Library, Life Skills, Literacy, Philanthropy, Schools, The Pollination Project, Training, Transformation, Trees, Workshops, Youth, Impact News

 
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Why Does America Still Imprison Young People for Life?  

In the 1990s, the number of juveniles in prison rapidly increased after a study came out called “The Superpredator Script,” which described a new breed of young criminals who needed to be treated as adults. Today, there are about 250,000 American children tried as adults per year. “The United States is the only country other than Somalia that sentences kids to die in prison,” says the founder of the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, Scott Budnick (who also produced the Hangover movie franchise). In this video, he discusses the consequences of trying juvenile offenders as adults and the need for nationwide reform.

 
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How to create new, new business  

If you want to win new work from new clients (new-new business), where do you start? The days of cold calling and persistence being effective tactics are long gone. Today's new business relationships need to be fostered in much the same way you'd start and nurture a personal relationship. You don't walk up to a complete stranger and ask them to marry you. So why would you do the same with a potential client?

Your approach should be to draw your new client towards you, before you start to approach them. If two people are moving towards each other, they are more likely to keep going and close the gap. They also meet as equals. When one person pursues another, on the other hand, this can set that person running in the same direction. The chase is energy sapping for both parties. It also risks putting the balance of power in any conversation in the hands of the person being chased, which is not good for the agency.

So how do you draw your new-new clients-to-be to you? There is a path that you could follow called Know, Like, Trust and Buy. Here are the stages, described briefly, with some actions that build your credibility at each stage and could move you to the next.

Stage 1: Know. Your clients-to-be need to get to know you. This step should be made gradually, consistently, memorably and be relevant to your clients. Ask, “What do my clients need to know for them?” They're not looking for a new agency so the things about you are less important. What would be useful to them? And of all of that, what is the link to you and what you do? What matters to your client? What matters to you? And where do they intersect?

Actions: Do some research and gather your answers to the above questions. What is going on in the sector? Who could you ask? What do you think about this? Turn your thinking into a regular newsletter or blog to send to your clients-to-be. Give it a name, and a brand. Focus it solely on them and their interests and concerns.

Stage 2: Like. Your clients-to-be start to like you. How do we get to like someone? We feel they have empathy with our situation. And us with theirs. We feel that they “get us”. They understand what's going on in our world. And what they say or show us is useful to us. How do you enable your client to learn something new about themselves, their sector?

Actions: Notice what is happening with your communication. Is there some evidence that your readers are liking what you are writing? If you use a trackable delivery system for your email you will be able to see who is starting to warm to you. Join a LinkedIn group where your client community gathers. Post a link to your piece along with a question. Send those people who open your communication a short thank you note and a bonus item.

Stage 3: Trust. Your clients-to-be start to trust you. This is a big move and the phase where you start to share more of you. There is likely to be some sort of personal contact, some sort of investment by you in the relationship. You might look to meet them at an event. Or you could invite them to an event that you are putting on, or attending around a theme of interest to them. There could be a telephone meeting. But this is not the opportunity for you to pitch or to pour on how brilliant you are. This is still about, building the relationship, inviting your client to talk, asking them “What do you think and what matters to you?” This is about being true and authentic to how you have communicated to this point. And then taking it to a personal level.

Stage 4: Buy. This may start to happen when you've done all of the above. And this is where you get the chance to demonstrate more overtly what you can do. This is where you will need to make sure that all of your evidence of past capability and process is ready to ensure that your approach pays off.

It can take a while to get to the buy stage because clients are people. They are not “buying decisions” or “budgets”. Any more than you are “someone who draws for a living” or a “computer operator”. This approach requires patience. When the opportunity to talk about you comes, you need to be ready, know what you are about and have a sound process in place to prepare and deliver a great presentation. If you've done the hard work to build the relationship to this point, you will have laid the foundations for proving that you're the partner they need.

John Scarrott will be talking about winning new business at this training workshop. 

The post How to create new, new business appeared first on Design Week.

 
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5 important things that happened in design this week  

Somerset House opened a new virtual reality exhibition

This week, Somerset House opened a new show dedicated to Icelandic songwriter Björk, using virtual reality and 360° video to trap the viewer within an immersive, musical experience.

While there are a few clunky, transitional phases to the exhibition moving between rooms, sitting down and scrambling around with headsets and earphones the show is an impressive depiction of how combining emotive music and inventive technology can create very powerful viewer experiences.

The show mainly focuses on songs from the musician's latest album Vulnicura, providing visitors with 3D music videos depicting Björk herself in both human form and as a strange, digital creature.

It's certainly an exhibition for Björk-lovers, but will also be inspiring and exciting for anybody interested in the latest applications of virtual and augmented reality, and 360° panoramic film.

Björk Digital runs at Somerset house until 23 October, and tickets are £15, or £12.50 concessions.

WKD had a complete rebrand

Alcopop brand WKD, known for its luminous colours and sugary sweetness, was redesigned by consultancy JKR this week, taking on a new “fun, exciting” concept.

The new look sees the brand ditch its embossed lettering for a cleaner typeface, coupled with a new exclamation mark motif, which looks to better align itself with its predominately 18-to-24-year-old audience.

The typography used is also transparent, allowing it to be used as a device for various “oil-painting-inspired” patterns, according to JKR. The bottles' caps also include a series of 1990s instant messaging-inspired emoticon motifs, which JKR says aims to increase the element of fun, but we assume also hopes to inspire some nostalgia in the brand's millennial drinkers.

The redesigned bottles will roll out with a range of four flavours in October, and with two low-calorie variants by the end of the year.

Ikea announced it would be opening a do-it-yourself restaurant

Furniture giant Ikea turned their hand to cookery this week, with a new dining space.

The pop-up Dining Club has been designed by Ikea's in-house team, and will open in London's Shoreditch on 10 September, and will be free for diners.

In typical Ikea fashion, the food's coming flatpacked diners will be able to attend masterclasses on topics such as Swedish Baking and Clean Eating, and will make their own meals.

The concept is based on encouraging people to spend time together through cooking and eating, Ikea says.

You can find out more about the dining experience here.

The Design Museum revealed the shortlist for its annual design awards

It was announced this week that the Channel 4 visual identity, the cover art for David Bowie's final album Blackstar and the Dreamland Margate theme park are all in the running for this year's Design Museum awards.

2016 marks the ninth edition of The Beazley Designs of the Year exhibition and awards programme, and sees a massive 70 designs shortlisted in categories including architecture, digital, fashion, graphics, product and transport.

All of the nominated designs will be included in one of the first exhibitions at the new Design Museum, set to open in London's Kensington in November.

A winner will be announced on 26 January 2017. You can view the full shortlist here.

We debated when designers should turn their hand to writing

Should you call in a professional writer to help with marketing, or should you have a go at crafting copy yourself?

This week, the Design Business Association's (DBA) head of services Adam Fennelow considers whether passion and expertise in the design field can equal, or even outweigh, professional writing skills.

For more insight, head here.

The post 5 important things that happened in design this week appeared first on Design Week.

 
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https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/29-august-4-september-2016/pww-designs-glaxosmithklines-research-development-smart-space/  
GlaxoSmithKline reveals new smart tech research space  

Consultancy PWW has developed pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline's (GSK) new research and development facility, Immersive Intelligent Manufacturing.

The new 697m² “smart space” is designed to demonstrate how “state-of-the-art systems and technologies can be combined in a manufacturing line and environment”, according to the consultancy.

Workshops, manufacturing and collaboration areas

The IIM facility is being used to accelerate technology adoption within GSK, and includes internal and external spaces that are interconnected. The “sandpit”, for instance, encompasses workshops, manufacturing and collaboration areas.

Other design features include a changing room complete with augmented reality lab attire instruction and compliance, which indicates whether the user is dressed correctly or not.

Colour has been used to improve the functionality of the facility by identifying different areas within it, as well as being incorporated in the signage, graphics and user interfaces.

“Show the art of possible”

PKK's design allows for flexible use of the facility, which is considered necessary due to the range of outputs and research carried out there.

Remote working is also possible through the use of technology that helps to control and visualise the manufacturing data.

Head of GSK's IIM project, Patrick Hyett, says: “We wanted to build a facility we can point to and show the art of the possible.”

The post GlaxoSmithKline reveals new smart tech research space appeared first on Design Week.

 
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https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/29-august-4-september-2016/bjork-digital-bringing-music-life-virtual-reality/  
Björk Digital: Bringing music to life through virtual reality  

Somerset House prides itself on its photography exhibitions but those expecting to see anything two-dimensional within the gallery's latest show will be in for a surprise.

Björk Digital is an exploration of songwriter Björk's 2015 album Vulnicura, using virtual and augmented reality, 360° video, soundscaping and cinema to create an immersive and emotionally stimulating experience.

The exhibition space is split up into eight rooms, each presenting a different virtual environment either through screens or headsets, from an Icelandic landscape to a cosmic view of the universe.

At the centre of each experience is Björk herself, either represented through film in human form, as a virtual creature or even as a body part, as one gruesome piece shows.

While this might seem a little egocentric, there's a point to it  the exhibition's use of interactive technology forces viewers to become part of the singer's tormented story. Visitors don't walk around the space surrounded by other people, but are instead trapped in a box with the singer alone.

This turns the exhibition into a deeply personal performance, helping viewers better understand the singer's own emotions throughout the album, from heartache to anger, as Björk herself explains.

“There is something about the 360° staging which is very theatrical and dramatic,” she says. “When you put those goggles on your face, you're in a very theatrical world. As heartbreak is the oldest story there is, I felt it could take this sort of experimentation.”

At the start of the exhibition, visitors enter a room lined with two panoramic screens on opposite walls, playing a short film called Black Lake, which features a distressed Björk strewn across a rocky, volcanic landscape in Iceland. The film, originally commissioned by New York's Museum of Modern Art, is a gentle lull into the more enveloping, solitary experiences which follow.

One of the loneliest and most affecting performances of the show is Stonemilker VR, a lengthy nine-minute-long 360° music video, which disorientates the viewer as they wobblingly swivel round on a stool with a headset on to capture Björk as she circles them against a beach landscape.

Things get a lot weirder with Mouthmantra VR, a headset experience filmed from the inside of the musician's mouth, with teeth, tongue and tonsils twirling in full view as she sings.

Stranger still is Notget VR, directed by Warren Du Preez and Nick Thornton Jones, which sees Björk transform into a bizarre, moth-like creature. The piece requires users to stand rather than sit, allowing you to come within inches of Björk's perturbing, computerised form (or, more likely, back away).

While the majority of exhibits are ready-made interactive experiences packaged up for the audience, the Biophilia space is a more educational platform which lets users select their own journey through an iPad, experiencing different music, visuals, and explore different technologies and musical instruments used within Björk's work.

In fitting fashion with the rest of the show, Björk revealed herself at the private view of the exhibition in digital form. Through the use of a motion capture suit and streaming technology, she appeared on a projection screen as a spacey avatar which mimicked her movements, able to interact with the audience and answer questions.

While seeing Björk in the flesh or simply via video stream might have also done the job, this avatar was a scary demonstration of the growing capability of immersive technology, mirrored throughout the rest of the exhibition.

The show is an eclectic mix some of the digital installations set within a cosmic environment are far removed from reality, while the 360° films trap the viewer within a very real-life world. But all of them prove how, while music and film can be very affecting on their own, technology can enhance and attack a viewer's senses. Björk Digital shows that isolating people within a virtual, non-real environment can ironically incite a lot of real, human emotion.

---

Björk Digital runs until 23 October 2016 at New Wing, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 1LA. Tickets are £15, or £12.50 concessions.

The post Björk Digital: Bringing music to life through virtual reality appeared first on Design Week.

 
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https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/29-august-4-september-2016/freelance-state-mind-real-value-self-initiated-work/  
Freelance State of Mind: The real value in self-initiated work  

It's always there. The latest achingly cool project you've stumbled upon in this crowded creative industry of ours, confronting your confidence, making you feel like you need to tailor your own work according to what is cool and what you think they would want to see in a portfolio.

Then there's a moment when it becomes apparent that you've lost your creative identity and strayed away from those college dreams, directionless and disillusioned. That's where I found myself six months after graduation.

Unless you're very fortunate, making money is essential. I did my fair share of drawing faceless people in suits climbing ladders into money trees among other tired conceptual illustrations for early clients with the best intentions and decent budgets.

“Personal work is easily abandoned in the face of fat salaries”

I held dear to my trust that they would be temporary, earning me the money to transition away from employment towards freelancing as an illustrator where I could be more effective in shaping my own destiny. The jobs that I really desired started to arrive when people saw my personal work, the stuff that is so easily abandoned in the face of fat salaries, trends, mortgages and that TV package.

The world is littered with examples of landmark projects born of expressions of individual experiences, drawing on the world around us. The Office was the product of Stephen Merchant and Ricky Gervais' comedic study on the world of middle management and one of the most successful self-initiated projects of all time.

I felt a tremendous sense of wonder as a seventeen year old, when Gorillaz arrived on the scene. Seeing what Jamie Hewlett and Damon Albarn had created made me yearn for the same belonging to something that I loved to do and was my own, despite having no clue where to begin. Some may have called that a fantasy for the young and naïve, but isn't that why we all wished to get into the creative industry in the first place?

I felt the same glowing feeling, a year removed from education, thanks to the roaring laughter in my shared studio when I presented a new illustration, featuring a boxing poster pitting Barack Obama against Hilary Clinton in what I called The Race v Sex Challenge. This was my way of expressing the dismay I felt with the media's persistent focus on the gender or Hilary and the skin colour of Barack.

It was in a meeting with the then design director of The Guardian, that my eyes were opened to the benefits of personal work. Flicking through my portfolio, featuring only one commissioned piece of work and 24 pages of self-initiated pieces, he stopped on The Race Sex challenge and told me that my angle on current affairs was different, funny and interesting. The self-initiated football work I created to show my knowledge was flagged as valuable too. To my surprise, I was working for The Guardian within a couple of months, despite an overwhelming competition field and vast inexperience.

Why personal work pays off

After that, only the commissioned work I enjoyed creating made the portfolio, while many jobs that provided nothing more than money were ruthlessly omitted to avoid attracting similar jobs with no creative benefit. Over 50% of the portfolio were works I had self-initiated, just like the Race v Sex Challenge.

On episode 25 of my Arrest All Mimics podcast, creative agency Human After All discuss how Little White Lies started as a university project and ultimately brought in work for the BAFTAs.

I won my first job outside of editorial illustration, working on a Channel 4 television trailer for season 3 of Skins. A chance meeting with a director from the TV station led him to Tyson v Thatcher, a follow on from The Race Sex Challenge. He found the piece hilarious, daring and saw a playfulness and energy in the work that he felt Skins was crying out for.

The Skins work continued for three years, brought me great creative pleasure and elevated my name, bringing me positive press and other jobs in new fields. Now, with eight years experience, I continue to play, to explore new ideas and harness that precious asset we all possess which is a unique journey.

Getting the balance right

Client work is wonderful and essential, but it is the work we create simply because we want to, out of some deep-rooted necessity owed only to ourselves that embodies the truly refreshing and qualities most likely to attract the work we dream about at college.

Personal connects with a greater number of people while trends are forgotten very fast. The portfolio, no matter the discipline, is not just a showcase of what you've done or can do, but more importantly, has to be a statement of intent, packed with the ideas, honesty, oddity and originality found only in you.

Ben Tallon is a Design Week columnist, illustrator, art director and author of Champagne and Wax Crayons: Riding the Madness of the Creative Industries. He also hosts visual arts podcast Arrest All Mimics.

You can follow him on Twitter at @bentallon and see his portfolios at illustrationweb.com/bentallon and illustrationweb.com/tallontype.

You can read his Freelance State of Mind columns here.

The post Freelance State of Mind: The real value in self-initiated work appeared first on Design Week.

 
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https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/29-august-4-september-2016/design-museum-reveals-shortlist-beazley-designs-year-award/  
Design Museum reveals shortlist for Beazley Designs of the Year award  

The nominees have been announced for the Design Museum's ninth annual exhibition and awards programme, the Beazley Designs of the Year.

Celebrating the best design from all over the world over the last 12 months, the nominees span six different categories, including architecture; digital; fashion; graphics; product and transport.

The 70 shortlisted designs feature everything from high profile ad campaigns like Apple's Shot on iPhone 6, to innovative solutions to the refugee crisis, such as a flat-pack refugee shelter designed by the IKEA Foundation.

Dreamland Margate and the Channel 4 rebrand

HemingwayDesign's Dreamland Margate theme park is one of the nominees in the architecture category, while the Adidas x Parley running shoe made from illegal deep-sea gillnets and recycled ocean plastics is in the running for the product design prize.

The graphics nominees include the new Channel 4 identity created by 4Creative with Neville Brody and the artwork for the late David Bowie's final album, Blackstar, designed by Jonathan Barnbrook.

And the Lumos smart bicycle helmet is one of the shortlisted transport designs, comprising integrated lights, brakes and turn signals.

Part of opening programme

The nominated designs will form part of the Design Museum's exhibition programme when it moves to its new Kensington location in November. Sketches, physical designs, models and photography for all the nominees will go on display.

A winner will then be selected in each of the categories and an overall winner announced on 26 January 2017.

See the full list of nominees and find out more information about the awards here.

The post Design Museum reveals shortlist for Beazley Designs of the Year award appeared first on Design Week.

 
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https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/aug/31/modernist-american-architecture-photos  
‘Concrete can be beautiful': readers' modernist American architecture photos  

We asked you for images of modernist American architecture. From Chicago concrete to Palm Spring aesthetics, here is what you've discovered

I took this photo during a three month sabbatical spent across Japan and America. Chicago was our final port of call before flying home, and the architecture we saw there was an unexpected surprise and a delight. I hadn't realised the ‘corncob' towers were even in Chicago, though I recognised them from Wilco's “Yankee, Hotel Foxtrot” album cover. I took the photo from the Chicago river as we sailed past on an architecture tour boat. The guide explained how they were part of a wonderful utopian idea to have homes, parking, shops, an auditorium, offices and a marina all in one place to encourage Chicagoans to move back downtown. Hence their name Marina Towers.

Related: A man for Four Seasons: my goodbye to New York's modernist cathedral

Related: The world's weirdest skyscrapers in pictures

Continue reading...  
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A World of Bliss  
One day during my lunch break I lay in the grass under an apple tree. It was hot and before my eyes everything swam in the light green air. The wind swept through the tree and through the beloved grass. Behind me lay the dark edge of a forest with its somber, faithful firs. Desires swarmed through my head. I wished for a lover to match the sweet-fragranced wind.  
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http://99u.com/videos/54157/jennifer-daniel-i-failed-but-i-am-not-a-failure/  
Jennifer Daniel: Stop Trying to Design Everything  

Social media puts an impossibly glossy shine on design, careers, and life in general. But let's be real about that perfectly-put together construction of ourselves we've curated online, says New York Times graphics editor Jennifer Daniel. In this talk, Daniel address the pressure of trying to be a great parent, while also putting in the hours required to be a great designer: “Are people afraid that we can't do it all?” Because the truth is, “Well, we can't do it all.”

Jennifer Daniel is a graphics editor at the New York Times. Her picture book, Space! is an exploration of science through information graphics and is pretty good. Buy it. If your kid likes it maybe you'll like her new book, The Origin of Almost Everything coming out in the Fall of 2016. 

@jenniferdaniel

 
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Revealing an Unknown Cairo  
What Yasmine El Rashidi attempts in her deceptively quiet, adamantine novel Chronicle of a Last Summer is no less than to suffuse the present with the past, to convey the way in which a walk through Cairo and the purchase of vegetables are acts filled not only with vivid present detail but also with echoes of historical and political significance.  
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https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/aug/31/ratan-600-telescope-russia-extratrerrestrial-aliens-space  
Noise, not aliens: Russian-detected signal likely 'terrestrial interference'  

Team of scientists manning Ratan-600 telescope said the signal they believed at first to have originated from a distant star had a ‘probable terrestrial origin'

It was Earth all along: The team of scientists manning a huge radio telescope high in the Caucasus region have said that the signal they believed at first to have originated from distant star HD164595 was most likely the result of “terrestrial interference”.

Continue reading...  
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http://www.designboom.com/art/cyril-de-commarque-mirrored-fluxland-london-river-thames-totally-thames-09-01-2016/  
cyril de commarque sends mirrored fluxland art space down london's river thames  

the artist has mounted a 25-meter long former freight boat with a mirrored polyhedron sculptural form, which will navigate the water on a series of journeys throughout the month of september.

The post cyril de commarque sends mirrored fluxland art space down london's river thames appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

 
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https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2016/sep/01/do-pink-floyd-belong-in-museum-v-and-a  
Rock's old masters: do Pink Floyd belong in a museum?  

The V&A has announced its exhibition dedicated to the psychedelic jesters turned unhip stadium titans. Can they do another Bowie? Is it even art?

Has the V&A gone a veteran rock group too far? Will its Pink Floyd exhibition next year put the public into interstellar overdrive or leave us comfortably numb?

This grand old Victorian museum has sensationally expanded its audiences and horizons in recent years with exhibitions dedicated to Kylie Minogue, David Bowie and opening on 10 September the great psychedelic rock age of the late 1960s. While Kylie may be regarded as a camp fashion-pop detour, David Bowie Is... proved a massive critical and cultural success, helping to generate a timely comeback for the star and enthusiasm from artists who count among Ziggy's most passionate admirers.

Related: Wish you were here: V&A announces details of Pink Floyd exhibition

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http://www.designboom.com/art/liudas-parulskis-vanishing-trolleybus-vilnius-lithuania-studio-vieta-09-01-2016/  
liudas parulskis' vanishing trolleybus blends into the urban landscape of vilnius, lithuania  

the installation invites pedestrians and passersby to observe the trolleybus at its vanishing point, and capture a unique moment in time.

The post liudas parulskis' vanishing trolleybus blends into the urban landscape of vilnius, lithuania appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

 
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http://heptagram.co/post/149771143005  
thewomb: Ferhat Hüseyin İtak  

thewomb:

Ferhat Hüseyin İtak

 
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http://www.designboom.com/art/kanye-west-famous-nude-celebrity-sculptures-exhibit-blum-and-poe-gallery-los-angeles-09-01-2016/  
kanye west's ‘famous' nude celebrities exhibit at blum & poe gallery  

the sculptural milieu of semi-nude sleeping figures includes the likes of taylor swift, kim kardashian, donald trump, george W. bush, rihanna, bill cosby, and west himself.

The post kanye west's ‘famous' nude celebrities exhibit at blum & poe gallery appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

 
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https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/aug/31/bjork-build-bridges-technology-somerset-house-london-virtual-reality-vulnicura  
Björk: ‘I build bridges between tech and the human things we do'  

Icelandic singer brings her 360-degree VR show to London's Somerset House, putting the universe of Vulnicura on display

Few will be surprised to learn that Björk admits she can be something of a control freak when it comes to her musical output.

“When I make my music I am a bit of a tyrant it is my world and people follow my vision,” she says with a giggle. “But with the visuals it's more of a collaboration.”

Related: Björk: Vulnicura review a sucker punch of a breakup album

Related: Björk: 'It's no coincidence that the porn industry has embraced virtual reality'

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London Canary Wharf  

yovisueel posted a photo:

 
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Photos From Burning Man 2016 (27 photos)  

Every year, participants in the Burning Man Festival descend on the playa of Nevada's Black Rock Desert to form a temporary city—a self-reliant community populated by performers, artists, free spirits, and more. An estimated 70,000 people from all over the world came to the 30th annual Burning Man to dance, express themselves, and take in the spectacle. Gathered below are some of the sights from this year, photographed once again by Reuters photographer Jim Urquhart.

 
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Photos of the Day: Sept. 1, 2016  

Explore the news of the day with these images from around the world.  
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Hold on by Justin Rosenberg  

Hold on by Justin Rosenberg

"They hung a sign up in our town 'If you live it up, you won't live it down'" - Tom Waits

Justin Rosenberg: Photos

 
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The Thames  

talv_ss posted a photo:

View of London from canary wharf

 
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Leafhopper (Erythron  

Leafhopper (Erythroneura vulnerata) collected in Thousand Islands National Park, Ontario, Canada, and photographed at the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics (sample ID: BIOUG20537-E04; specimen record: http://www.boldsystems.org/index.php/Public_RecordView?processid=CNTIC3917-15; BIN: http://www.boldsystems.org/index.php/Public_BarcodeCluster?clusteruri=BOLD:ACU6078)

 
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Self-medicating butt  
Self-medicating butterflies: woolly bear caterpillars use toxic food to fight parasites. #SensationalButterflies  
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Nature's Olympians:  
Nature's Olympians: record-breaking #SensationalButterflies  
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Labrador sulphur (Co  

Labrador sulphur (Colias nastes) collected in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, and photographed at the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics (sample ID: 04HBL003042; specimen record: http://www.boldsystems.org/index.php/Public_RecordView?processid=LCH042-04; BIN: http://www.boldsystems.org/index.php/Public_BarcodeCluster?clusteruri=BOLD:ACE5358)

 
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Northern gannets on  
Northern gannets on the Saltee Islands, Ireland (© Bart Breet/Minden Pictures) 2016-09-01 [www.bing.com/search]  
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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheDailyGalaxyNewsFromPlanetEarthBeyond/~3/PuWdz2Y6MmI/binary-star-system-discovered-hosting-three-giant-jupiter-sized-planets.html  
Binary Star System Discovered Hosting Three Giant Jupiter-Sized Planets  
 
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Russia Plans Mission to Land a Rocket on Jupiter's Ganymede, Only Moon with its Own Magnetic Field --"100-Kilometer-Deep Ocean a Hotspot for Life"  
 
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NASA Astrobiology Doubts Claim of 3.7 Billion Year Old Fossil --"Earth's Skies were Orange and Oceans Green"  
 
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The Rise and Fall of Galaxies --"10 Billion Years Ago Our Milky Way Was Much Smaller, but Forming Stars 30 Times Faster Than Today"  
 
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Mars team  

europeanspaceagency posted a photo:

This week, the ExoMars mission control team at ESA's centre in Darmstadt, Germany, is training to prepare for next month's arrival at the Red Planet.

Under the watchful eye of Flight Operations Director Michel Denis, the team was taken through a series of realistic simulations that rehearsed both ‘nominal' when everything goes as planned and ‘contingency' the opposite situations.

The team is actually a ‘team of teams' a number of spacecraft operations engineers working under the spacecraft operations manager, supported by diverse specialists from areas including flight dynamics, ground station operations, software and network support, and simulations and training as well as the ExoMars team from ESA's technical centre in the Netherlands.

Teams from the builder of the Mars orbiter, Thales Alenia Space France, and the builder of the Schiaparelli lander, Thales Alenia Space Italy, also took part in the ‘sim'.

Today, ExoMars has completed 80% of the 500 million km trip to Mars, and is 121 566 000 km from Earth. Schiaparelli is set to separate from its parent craft on 16 October and, three days later, will land on Mars as the orbiter fires its main engine to begin circling the planet.

Credit: ESA

 
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"We're Losing Control" --Chinese AI Program Defeats World Masters at Planet's Oldest Most Difficult Board Game  
 
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"Is Alpha Centuari's Proxima b Habitable?" --A Deep Look by Rory Barnes of NASA's Virtual Planetary Lab  
 
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NASA Discovers Most Distant Galaxy Cluster in the Cosmos --"Going Through an Amazing Growth Spurt"  
 
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A Voyage to Alpha Centauri's Habitable Planet in the Year 3030 (VIDEO)  
 
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Fatherhood Plummets Testosterone... Maybe.  
It's so easy to tie things to hormones. We usually think of it as a woman's thing. Fat after a baby? It's her hormones. Cranky when she's hitting her late 40s? It's her hormones.

But what about men? In the July issue of Hormones and Behavior, scientists link a man's sinking testosterone levels during his partner's pregnancy to an increased investment in fatherhood. The study tracked 27 heterosexual couples, measuring everyone's testosterone (men and women) three to four times during the pregnancy. Then they all filled out a survey about their investment, commitment, and satisfaction when the baby turned 3-and-a-half months.

The study confirms earlier research suggesting that men with lower levels of testosterone are better nurturers than higher-testosterone men who are thinking more about making babies than taking care of them. This kind of thinking meshes with the old fashioned notion that links all things manly and macho with testosterone and all things cuddly with estrogen. It's a notion that some doctors have been fighting against every since testosterone was named testosterone.

In 1927, when the University of Chicago's Dr. Fred Koch eked out .0007th of a gram of active ingredient from 44 pounds of bulls' testicles, he refused to give the newfound hormone a name. "It is our feeling that until more is known about the chemical nature of the hormone no name should be given," he wrote in a scientific article, "The Testicular Hormone." Eight years later, University of Amsterdam's Ernst Laqueur purified the substance and called it testosterone. There was griping about the name. The problem was testosterone implied that it's from the testicles and only from the testicles, which it isn't. And that implies it's just a man's hormone, which it isn't. The adrenal glands make testosterone. So do ovaries -- in tinier amounts. Dr. A. S. Parkes, a British endocrinologist, loathed the name: "The idea of maleness and femaleness as clearly defined endocrine states was finally shattered by the early work on the steroid hormones," he said in lecture to the Zoological Society of London. But it wasn't.

Hormones do impact behavior. And maybe they are onto something. Women know all too well about monthly mood swings with our hormones going this way and that. But still, I'm not convinced about the testosterone-parenting thing. Along with the strengths of their study (repeated sampling of testosterone and tracking parents throughout pregnancy), they admit to a few weaknesses. For one, it was small. More importantly, they didn't compare parenting attitudes between fathers with plummeting testosterone to fathers without a decline.

So where does that leave us? Well, its nice to see that at least 27 of these new fathers, according to this study, are enjoying their newborns and finding satisfaction with the diaper changing. I'm just not persuaded that the lower testosterone is the main cause of their new parental urges. Maybe the guys in this study just like being new dads.

-- 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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Stars burning strangely make life in the multiverse more likely  
Supporters of the multiverse often cite a specific reaction in stars that seems tuned for life, making our universe improbable but now there's a new idea  
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It's Time For World Leaders To Support Fossil Free Finance  


Starting this weekend, the G20 -- a group representing the governments of 20 of the world's biggest economies, including the United States and China -- will have its annual summit, this year in Hangzhou, China. Our focus is fossil free finance -- that is, shifting the trillions of dollars funneled toward dirty and outdated fossil fuels each year to the modern clean energy solutions that can and will meet the growing global energy demand; it's time for G20 country governments to get serious about stopping subsidies to fossil fuels.

The G20 summit takes place annually, with a consistent focus on international economic cooperation amidst a changing global context. Since last year's G20 summit in Turkey, one of the biggest changes in the global context has been the adoption of the Paris Agreement -- an accord agreed upon by 195 countries and signed by over 175 nations to limit global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius. As my colleague Maura Cowley previously noted, the Paris Agreement calls for "making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development."

Finance is the engine that moves us away from a world powered by fossil fuels that wreak havoc on the climate to a world powered by clean energy that enables a stable climate.

Last November, a report from the Overseas Development Institute and Oil Change International found that the country governments comprising the G20 are providing $444 billion in annual subsidies for the production of fossil fuels -- which is four times more than global investment in clean energy. This is disappointing, as G20 countries first made a commitment to phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies in the medium term way back in 2009.

The G7 countries have committed to ending fossil fuel subsidies by 2025, but the G20 should set a more aggressive timeline. In June, an open letter from more than 200 civil society organizations called for a 2020 deadline for fossil fuel subsidies from the G20, and pressure continues to grow.

While the Paris Agreement is a new development in the backdrop of the G20 summit, it is not new to see calls for fossil free finance directed at the G20. Last fall, ahead of the 2015 G20 summit in Turkey, 63 civil society organizations sent a letter calling on the finance ministers of the G20 and the Turkish G20 presidency to "advance commitments to phase out fossil fuel subsidies."

Ahead of this year's summit in China, the Sierra Club's International Climate & Energy Campaign has launched a Fossil Free Finance campaign, with an opportunity to take action by telling President Obama and other G20 leaders to phase out fossil fuel subsidies by 2020. Last week, 130 investors controlling $13 trillion of investments called upon G20 countries to quickly ratify the Paris Agreement, to accelerate investment into clean energy, to disclose climate risk in order to assist with carbon pricing, and to phase out fossil fuel subsidies. And just this week, three of the world's biggest insurers -- Aviva, Aegon, and Amlin -- released a statement indicating that the G20 should end fossil fuel subsidies in four years, by 2020.

The Sierra Club's Fossil Free Finance campaign targets two sides of the same coin: subsidies and divestment -- that is, pulling stocks, bonds, and investment funds out of fossil fuel industries. As noted in an article by Thijs Van de Graaf and Mathieu Blondeel, campaigns around fossil fuel divestment and fossil fuel subsidies would benefit from joining forces and seizing the potential partnership between the campaigns.

We hope the G20 leadership will demonstrate its commitment to the Paris Agreement and a safe climate future by making commits to fossil free finance on the side of divestment as well as subsidies.

Join us to call on G20 leaders to phase out all fossil fuel subsidies by 2020!

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From Leash Reactivity To Leash Aggression: 5 Steps To Influence Your Dog or Puppy  


If only I had a golden dog biscuit for the times I've heard the phrase "My dog is a bully" while out walking my dogs. Often hollered from the backend of a leash, people assume that the one who pulls the hardest, barks the loudest, and inflicts the most pain must be a real bully.

Or should I say, that people wrongly assume...

I'm here to set the record straight. When talking about dogs, or kids for that matter, aggression (aka bullying) is rarely a sign of strength or savvy. Real bullies are poorly socialized, insufficiently nurtured individuals who lack boundary control and the ability to process bad feelings.

Does that describe your dog? Probably not. Many leash aggressive dogs are pussy cats at home. So what gives?

To understand the nature of leash reactive dogs, learn how to interpret their communicative poses. Here is a sampling of the posture illustrations from my most recent book Modern Dog Parenting, Raising Your Dog or Puppy to Be a Loving Member of Your Family, St. Martins Press. Each one represents an emotional reaction: memorize these and you'll be able to translate what dog's think and feel.

Defensive Posture


Frustrated Posture


Fearful-Defensive Posture



Now consider what happens when you're out walking your dog.

From your perspective, leash walks are bonding time: an excellent way to get out and give your dog exercise.

Your dog doesn't always share your worldview, however. Strolling along tethered to the end of a 6-foot strap can get be monotonous and restrictive. Given the choice your dog, like all other dogs, would run along freely following a scented pathway, picking and choosing friends by her standard.

Although dogs can be conditioned to accept the restraint and learn to adapt to our social habits, if you haven't made the effort, chances are your dog has pulled you. And if you've been pulled, you've likely found yourself on the receiving end of what I affectionately call a CHW: A Canine Holy War.

What does that look like? CHWs may include any of the following:

• Stare downs
• 
  
• Raised hackles
• 
  
• Leash lunging
• 
  
• Defensive barking
• 
  
• Snarls and growls
• 
  
• Leash spinning, often paired with redirected aggression toward you or another familiar dog
• 
  
• An all out dog fight
• 
  

To fully understand why dogs feel stressed during their leash walks you'd have to be a dog. The next best thing? Learn to think like them: I can help you there.

In the long, intertwined history of people and dogs, the leash and leash walking are relatively new inventions, designed for convenience and safety. Humans walk in straight lines, confident in the belief that they are in charge because they are holding the leash.

But restricted, linear movement is unnatural for dogs, who prefer to meander and explore. Dogs start out pulling on the leash to increase the meandering. Humans pull back to increase the restriction. This combination of straining to get away and pulling back puts pressure on the dog's collar or body, and in a response known as oppositional reflex, the dog pulls back. A feeling of entrapment causes the stress hormones to flow.

Put yourself in your dog's paws or imagine trying to do a similar thing to a child.

Dog's respond to anxiety the same way all mammals including people, do: they get frustrated or frantic. Some dog's pull harder, while others increase movement back and forth. Neither response reflects joy, and when forced into the personal space of another dog or person their stress skyrockets.

What does a dog do when their stress skyrockets? The same thing you'd do: they react. But dogs don't react as people do: they react like dogs do. Read the bulleted list above.

To rehabilitate your leash reactive or aggressive dog will take some effort on your part.

Step One: Off-Leash Control
Practice your first step off leash: Specifically indoors, and away from all distractions. Remember, if your dog doesn't prioritize your voice in the quiet of your home, she won't listen to you outside either.

Teach your dog to Follow, Stay, Watch and Find it- all directions and games you'll use on your walks. My book Modern Dog Parenting outlines positive lessons; my YouTube channel visualizes these routines too.

When you walk, move with enthusiasm. Fake it if you must. Walks are your dog's big adventure and he'll only alert to you if you reflect his excitement. Use treats, praise and toy play when introducing words: reward your dog's cooperation.

Step Two: Teach Your Dog ESL
Research now shows what dog parents have known for centuries: that dogs are communicating all the time, as well as responding to our reactions to their behavior. Sure they don't understand words: but they get the meaning by the tones we use.

To teach your dog to alert to words think of her like an ESL student (English as Second Language). Start with words that represent your daily routine, like inside, outside, car, and upstairs. Use a tone that's clear and directive: the kind you'd use when asking "Pass the Salt." Add hand signals and praise your dog for listening.

Step Three: Dress for Success
Before you use your new skills outside, equip your dog for success.
Be compassionate when choosing your dog's body wear. Many collars and harnesses restrain dogs ineffectively.

If your dog strains at the leash, you're using a poorly devised or fitted collar or harness. Flat or pronged collars can intensify leash aggression. Many dogs condition to the annoyance.

Test other collars or harness restraints. My favorites include the Gentle Leader, Easy Walk and other front clip harnesses.

Step Four: Positive Leash Conditioning
Before you set out with your new resolve, make sure you're using the right leash. Flexi-lease, while super for solitary field or beach meanderings, should not be used anywhere else. A sturdy 6-foot leash made of leather or nylon are ideal.

Hold the leash, like you would someone's hand: gently, gently. Relax your arm straight, and guide your dog back, using treats to sweeten the deal. If she lurches forward, calmly change direction or stop. Reward your dog with praise, treats or toys each time she looks up or cooperates with a direction.

Step Five: Leash Reactions
Before dogs are positively conditioned to their leash walks, many strain ahead, assuming a self-protective stance when they see something or someone who isn't immediately identifiable. When this happens too often, these same dogs start to scan the distant plains for strangers in their midsts. True, your suburban cul-de-sac may not resemble a dangerous wilderness, but old habits die hard.

Use happy talk, rewards and games like Find it to engage your dog as you walk with her. If you're approaching an unfamiliar person or animal, check your dog's reaction. If your dog is frightened or agitated, move away or pass by quickly.

Remember the goal is to walk with your dog, not tethered to her. Walks should bring about the calm you experience when walking hand-in-hand with someone you love. It is a learned habit: it takes some practice to get it right.


Read Modern Dog Parenting to learn some tips to get started. If you need coaching, find someone in your area or reach out to me for Skype or private lessons. If you nip your leash issues early on, they can often be addressed in a single session.

Now, the next time you experience leash aggression, reconsider it. It has as little to do with conscious decision making as your reaction would if I were to drag you along on a short tether and were to force your greeting strangers against your better judgment.

You don't have to delve deeper too deeply into the psychology of dogs to learn that dogs think, act, and relate much like a 2-3-year-old toddler. And whether you have children, you can certainly remember being one. Close your eyes and imagine having to explore your world, day after day, on the end of a short tether. What emotions would that leave you with?

-- 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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Pope Urges Faithful To Save Planet From 'Debris, Desolation And Filth'  
Pope Francis called on Thursday for concerted action against environmental degradation and climate change, renewing a fierce attack on consumerism and...

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Discovery one-ups Tatooine, finds twin stars hosting three giant exoplanets  
Scientists have discovered three giant planets in a binary star system composed of stellar 'twins' that are also effectively siblings of our Sun. One star hosts two planets and the other hosts the third. The system represents the smallest-separation binary in which both stars host planets that has ever been observed. The findings may help explain the influence that giant planets like Jupiter have over a solar system's architecture.  
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The genesis project: New life on exoplanets  
Can life be brought to celestial bodies outside our solar system which are not permanently inhabitable? This is the question with which experts are dealing in a recent essay.  
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Watch: How autonomous cars could completely eliminate traffic jams  

Humans, as it turns out, are pretty crappy drivers. Of course, we knew this already. What you might not have known is, we're also directly responsible for most of the traffic problems we face on roadways. While we blame congestion, traffic lights and other cars for our traffic woes, as this video shows: it's mostly us. Unlike machines, humans are reactionary drivers. When a red light turns green, we react to the car in front of us moving, not the light itself. If each of us — even several cars back at a stoplight — reacted at the same time,…

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There's nothing ‘outrageous' about Jessica Alba's inclusion in ‘Planet of the Apps'  

The shortage of women in tech is troubling. What's more troubling is a woman, in tech, trying to keep women out of tech. Sadly, that's exactly what Gizmodo's Sophie Kleeman did with her recent piece titled ‘Apple's Decision to Cast Jessica Alba in Its Reality Show Is an Outrage.' The piece pines over the admittedly-odd casting decision while completely ignoring several bigger picture scenarios. According to Kleeman: But now, as other fine minds in tech blogging point out, the people in charge have gone and ruined it by casting Jessica Alba as a mentor to app developers. You know, Jessica Alba? That…

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Bill Nye is bringing his bow tie to Netflix  

Once known as ‘The Science Guy' Bill Nye is now here to ‘Save the World.' His new talkshow, according to Netflix, sounds a bit like Comedy Central's ‘The Daily Show' with Nye subbing for Trevor Noah and science taking the focus away from politics and pop culture. Each episode will tackle a topic from a scientific point of view, dispelling myths, and refuting anti-scientific claims that may be espoused by politicians, religious leaders or titans of industry. So, basically the opposite of a Trump speech. Nye, you may remember, starred in a PBS-syndicated educational program called ‘Bill Nye the Science Guy'…

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Transmission is living up to its name by spreading nasty malware (again)  

For the second time in under a year, security researchers have spotted a particularly nasty bit of malware in popular Mac BitTorrent client, ‘Transmission.' The discovery came just five months after its last brush with malware — the first viable ransomware ever found on the Mac. Security researchers at ESET discovered the newest bug, called OSX/Keydnap. Apparently, the malware was being spread through a recompiled version of Transmission that was temporarily distributed through its own website. OSX/Keydnap executes in a similar fashion to Transmission's last malware infection, KeRanger, in that it adds a malicious block of code to the core…

This story continues at The Next Web  
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Sony is betting the Xperia XZ and X Compact on an unconvincing camera  

I know it's true of every modern phone, but it's especially true of Sony's new pair of Xperia handsets: the camera will be the most important factor in deciding the fortunes of the Xperia XZ and Xperia X Compact. Introduced at IFA 2016 in Berlin today, Sony's Xperia XZ triples down on camera technology with a new laser autofocus, RGBC-IR white balance sensor, and its traditionally strong 23-megapixel imaging sensor. The Japanese company's new flagship even has a dedicated shutter button. And the Xperia X Compact is a smaller, less powerful vessel for that same upgraded camera system.

One of the reasons the camera is going to be so pivotal is that the rest of the specs are not all that impressive: the Xperia XZ has the Snapdragon 820,...

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Ocean Expeditions: News from The Ocean Cleanup and Oceanographer Julia Reisser  
By Julia TraversIn just a few years, The Ocean Cleanup has come a long way. It was four years ago that then teenager Boyan Slat introduced his soon-to-be viral ocean cleanup concept during a TEDx Talk, and in 2013 The Ocean Cleanup was founded. Below, read about a few of their incredible recent ...

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Thames Light  

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How GMOs Cut The Use Of Pesticides — And Perhaps Boosted It Again  

There's new and detailed data on the impact of genetically modified crops on pesticide use. Those crops replaced insecticides, and, at first, some herbicides. But herbicide use has rebounded.

 
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The Next Agriculture Revolution Is Under Our Feet  


By Justin Adams, Global Managing Director of Lands at The Nature Conservancy, and Bianca Moebius-Clune, Ph.D., Director at the Soil Health Division, USDA-NRCS

At the core of agriculture is innovation. Advancements in agricultural technology throughout the past century have allowed farmers to feed a population that has grown from less than 2 billion people to more than 7 billion today.

But, as demand for food continues to grow, our lands are stretched to their limits and crop yields struggle to keep up the pace, the world will need farmers to make another leap. By just 2050, global agricultural production must increase by 60 percent, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Some previous agricultural breakthroughs, though, have come with serious environmental costs to both people and nature. With a changing climate exacerbating today's challenges, it is clear the next agriculture revolution will require solutions that not only increase food production, but also sustain the health of our communities, our land and water, and our climate.

The next revolution

One such solution lies with the soil under our feet. About 70 percent of fresh water worldwide is used to produce food, and 95 percent of food is produced on land. Although historically there has been insufficient attention to the value of healthy soils, the data and case examples are clear: healthy soil is critical for long-term agricultural production.

Perhaps Franklin Delano Roosevelt put it best, as the devastating Dust Bowl swept across the U.S. Midwest in the 1930s: "A nation that destroys its soil destroys itself." We have greatly reduced soil erosion in the United States since the time of the Dust Bowl. But we are still losing soil faster than nature can replace it in many places on the planet, and losing its ability to function biologically and physically. According to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, every year we lose around 24 billion tons of fertile soil globally (about 2 billion tons/year in the United States, by estimates in the 2012 Natural Resources Inventory), and it takes roughly 2,000 years to generate 10 centimeters or not quite four inches of topsoil. In order to achieve global long-term food security while better protecting our communities and our environment, we must take soil health more seriously.

The good news is that while it may take hundreds of years to geologically build soil, farmers have demonstrated that they can increase organic matter and improve soil function in just a few years, through soil health management systems. This represents the hope in healthy soil -- the potential of regenerative agriculture.

Recently, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization identified soil organic carbon, soil erosion and soil nutrient imbalance as the top three threats to global soil health. These three elements are intimately related. Increase organic carbon, for example, and the others can improve too.



From nutrient management to carbon storage

Poor nutrient management costs everyone. When farmers pay for improperly planned application or overuse of fertilizers and other soil amendments (and the labor, and fuel to apply them), or when needed nutrients are lost to the environment due to poor soil physical and biological functioning, consumers see higher prices in supermarkets and restaurants.

The environment takes a hit, too: nutrients enter water systems instead of growing food. They stimulate algal blooms that contaminate drinking water and suffocate aquatic life. We saw this on the Ohio River in the summer of 2015, and we see it every summer with the Gulf of Mexico's dead zone, which has been averaging an area the size of Connecticut for the past few years--caused largely by excess nutrient loss from agricultural soils.

Likewise, better nutrient management coupled with other soil health practices have far-reaching positive impacts. For example, a resilient, well structured, healthy soil that drains well after extreme rainfall events, along with better nutrient (nitrogen) management can reduce emissions of the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide -- strengthening the significant opportunity for farmers to be a part of the global climate solution. Producers can increase soil carbon stocks and sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, while also improving the soil's ability to retain nutrients through many strategies: such as decreasing disturbance, growing diverse crops and cover crops to maximize the time each year that living roots are building soils, keeping the soil surface protected, and adding amendments such as biochar or compost. And strategic crop rotations and nitrogen-fixing cover crops can also improve nutrient use efficiency, while limiting erosion and increasing soil carbon sequestration. (Paustian et al., 2016)

Better soil health management can often achieve these environmental benefits at a lower cost than other approaches -- and for farmers there is real profit potential. Improving infiltration and water-holding capacity, for example, can significantly reduce irrigation water needs, lessen dust pollution, and improve nutrient uptake by plants, which can reduce input costs, and reduce plant stress, disease and pest pressure. Over time, these practices reduce the risk of yield loss due to these stressors, and can bring about a material increase in crop yields and quality. Importantly, we must work with the agricultural industry to find the right policies and business models that unlock this sort of economic potential for both the land owners as well as the farmers who are often tenants on the land.

Better soil health starts with collaboration

With farming and ranching occurring in all 50 of the United States and on roughly 40 percent of land around the world, there is global opportunity to continue building on the success of our soil conservation work and to share and learn from new experience. It starts with collaboration.



One example is the long-standing collaboration between The Nature Conservancy and the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) team at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). We've worked jointly with influential farmers like Tim Smith, who was recognized for his leadership in sustainable agriculture by being selected as a 2015 Champion for Change. We recently visited Tim in Iowa to learn how he is focusing on soil health and what is working well.

"Soil health is an awareness," Tim told us. "There's more going on than having [particular] chemical properties ... We're also thinking about the biological properties that exist in the soil that really make the soil work."

Being on Tim's farm let us feel the effect of healthier soil. He contrasted "square and bare" fields that had been traditionally tilled with those that had cover crops. We saw how the fields that had cover crops absorbed water more quickly and kept it in the soil longer. Tim emphasized that these fields are producing more food with less water on the same amount of land.

"Conservation is very important to me," Tim said. "It deals with the land, the soil -- something we cannot replace. This farm has been in the family for 135 years. And a lot of times, I ask other farmers, 'Because of the way we farm and the practices we use, what's our soil going to be like in another 125 or 130 years? Are we going to have the same soils that we have now?'"

As part of his efforts, Tim is involved with the Soil Health Partnership, which is a farmer-led project focused on testing and sharing new approaches to improving soil health. Led by the National Corn Growers Association, both The Nature Conservancy and NRCS are active in the partnership. (See videos on what The Nature Conservancy is doing regarding soil health here).

Cross-sector action

Soil health might not grab the headlines, but it might just be the most important agricultural conservation endeavor of our lifetime. If we want to meet the growing demand for food while strengthening the health of our communities, our land and water, and our climate, we need to support innovation in soil health and ensure farmers have broad access to the practices and incentives that can shift the paradigm. Part of this is working with businesses and other stakeholders to create new service offerings and innovative finance approaches coordinated with this transition.

There is emerging collaboration in the public sector as well, such as the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy's new soil science interagency working group that will receive input from 15 different federal departments and agencies. The working group to be co-led by USDA, USDI and NASA, will contribute to finding innovative ways of protecting America's soil.

This is an opportunity to take responsibility -- together -- for the land that feeds us and our children. We invite farmers, ranchers, and consumers alike to join in collaboration in this next agricultural revolution -- a revolution that starts under our feet.

Image credits: 1) Soil sampling a wetland in First State National Park. Photo © The Nature Conservancy (Devan King); 2) Soybeans grow through a dense blanket of diverse cover crop residue in this Nebraska field. Photo © Ron Nichols/USDA-NRCS; 3) Tim Smith. Photo © Joseph Murphy/Iowa Soybean Association.

-- 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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Taking A Stand For Washington's Wolves  
It's been a sickening week in the Pacific Northwest.

Snipers, including gunners in helicopters, have snuffed out half of Washington state's Profanity Peak wolf pack and have put the rest of the pack in the crosshairs. This wolf family has been shattered by the loss of the breeding alpha female and five other members. All that's left is an adult male and a few 4-month-old pups.

By the time you read this, the pack could be wiped out -- 12 percent of the state's fledgling wolf population in just a few days.

Sadly it's another reminder that although we've come a long way in terms of tolerating predators like wolves and grizzly bears on our landscapes -- there's still much more to be done.

The situation with the Profanity Peak pack highlights much of what's wrong with how we manage conflicts between recovering wolf populations and livestock grazing. Rather than ensure ranchers are using proven non-lethal measures to the fullest extent to avoid losses, we instead blame wolves for doing what wolves have always done, namely preying on ungulates, and kill them whenever cattle are lost.

In the case of the Profanity Peak pack, the cows were being grazed on public lands in a high risk area, and few deterrence measures were being utilized. According to Dr. Robert Wielgus of the large carnivore lab at Washington State University, the rancher in question, Len McIrvin, refused to enter into a "cooperative damage prevention agreement" to work with state wolf researchers to avoid conflicts and was grazing his cows over a known den site, leading Dr. Wielgus to conclude in the Seattle Times that loss of cows was "predictable and avoidable."

Adding insult to injury, we've been here before. In 2012 the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, the same agency currently targeting the Profanity Peak pack, killed seven members of the Wedge pack in response to cattle losses by the same rancher.

This highlights a fundamental problem with killing wolves to protect cows. If non-lethal measures are not used to reduce the risk of losing cattle in the first place, than the whole vicious cycle is likely to repeat itself once more wolves move back in. And what incentives do ranchers have to change their practices if the state comes in and kills wolves at taxpayer expense every time they start losing cows?

Earlier this year, the state agency did enact a protocol whereby it will not kill wolves until there has been loss or injury of four cows in a calendar year and unless the rancher who lost cattle is removing dead cows that may attract wolves to the area and carrying out at least one deterrence measure.

Although a step in the right direction, there are a number of problems with this approach. First and foremost, simply requiring a rancher to do any single measure fails to ensure that non-lethal deterrence measures that are likely to be effective are being utilized. Indeed, the one measure Mr. McIrvin apparently took was to delay release of cow calf pairs until the calves were big enough to hopefully avoid attracting wolves. After cows were already lost, he also apparently added a range rider to unsuccessfully deter further losses. Given that he was grazing his cows over a known den site, however, these measures had little chance of success.

A better approach and one utilized in Oregon is to require ranchers to work with the state to develop a conflict deterrence plan for the specific grazing allotment and enact measures with a high likelihood of success.

The second problem with the approach is that it fails to build in enough tolerance for minor losses of cattle to wolves. The approach of killing wolves in response to cattle losses is based on the fundamentally flawed idea that once wolves start preying on cows, they will switch to singularly focusing on them and the situation will quickly escalate, but this is often not the case.

In reality, wolves are a coursing predator that move through large territories searching for opportunities to take ungulate prey with little risk. If cattle overlap with their territory and the risk is low because of a lack of non-lethal deterrence, they will prey on them when they're in that portion of their territory, but then often move on.

We saw this at work in Oregon. In 2011, the Center for Biological Diversity and our allies stopped the state of Oregon from killing wolves in the Imnaha pack. The state insisted that the pack was chronically depredating cattle and that the situation would only get worse, but after we worked out a strong protocol with the state requiring tolerance of some cattle loss and utilization of non-lethal measures, only a small number of depredations occurred over the next several years and the pack stuck mostly to native prey.

Predators, including wolves, typically cause a small fraction of cattle losses with disease, accidents and even lightning causing many more deaths. In many cases, wolves with cattle in their territories may end up taking a couple cows in addition to native ungulates, but particularly if non-lethal deterrence measures are effectively used, such events will be infrequent and should be a normal part of ranching.

But by only requiring four injuries or losses in an entire year, which could happen in a single depredation event, Washington's protocol does not allow this process to play out before the state steps in and tragically starts killing wolves at taxpayer expense.

This is particularly problematic on public lands, where the American public has a right to expect that a beloved species like the wolf -- which was nearly wiped out for the benefit of ranchers but for which we have now expended substantial resources to recover -- will be treated with tolerance and respect. Instead, the state of Washington for the second time has stepped in to kill wolves for the benefit of a rancher who has shown considerable resistance to taking common sense measures to protect his cows on land we all own. This is a travesty and one that should not be allowed to occur again.

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NASA: Planet Warming At Fastest Pace In 1,000 Years  
The planet is warming at an unprecedented pace not experienced in the past 1000 years. That's according to NASA.

That means that it is "very unlikely" that global warming will stay within the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit set by nations last December. Gavin Schmidt director of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies said:

In the last 30 years we've really moved into exceptional territory. Maintaining temperatures below the 1.5C guardrail requires significant and very rapid cuts in carbon dioxide emissions or co-ordinated geo-engineering. That is very unlikely. We are not even yet making emissions cuts commensurate with keeping warming below 2C.

The news comes two days after experts declared that man's carbon impact on the planet is now so profound that a new geological epoch -- the Anthropocene -- needs to be declared. This would formally mark end of the Holocene era characterized by 12,000 years of stable climate when all of human civilisation developed.

Prof Chris Rapley, a climate scientist at University College London says:

Since the planet is our life support system -- we are essentially the crew of a largish spaceship -- interference with its functioning at this level and on this scale is highly significant. If you or I were crew on a smaller spacecraft, it would be unthinkable to interfere with the systems that provide us with air, water, fodder and climate control. But the shift into the Anthropocene tells us that we are playing with fire, a potentially reckless mode of behaviour which we are likely to come to regret unless we get a grip on the situation

And, although a 2C temperature rise may not sound like much, the World Bank says that it is enough to push millions of people into poverty as basic resources such as food and water slip out of reach. It expects conflicts over both commodities to erupt over the next couple of years.

According to James Hansen, Nasa's former top climate scientist often dubbed as the grandfather of climate science, global warming will usher in a 2 to 5 meter sea level rise by the end of this century:

Social disruption and economic consequences of such large sea level rise could be devastating. It is not difficult to imagine that conflicts arising from forced migrations and economic collapse might make the planet ungovernable, threatening the very fabric of civilization.

The current conflict in Syria, exacerbated by widespread drought, may be a mere harbinger of things to come. And given the assumed accelerated pace of melting, all this could happen just decades from now, not centuries.

The news comes as monthly temperatures continue to smash records. July was the hottest July since records began over 130 tears ago. And, 2016 is expected to be the warmest year in history, following a record 2015 and 2014:

"It's the long-term trend we have to worry about though and there's no evidence it's going away and lots of reasons to think it's here to stay," says Schmidt, "This is a chronic problem for society for the next 100 years."

According to the United Nations, world temperatures are expected to race past the 4C mark before the turn of this century. Such a temperature change will bring about changes not seen since the last Ice Age, ushering in a mass extinction event.

"In a rational world, this is what every presidential debate would focus on. Forget the mythical flood of immigrants -- concentrate on the actual flooding," writes climate activist Bill McKibben.

Although last year's Paris climate deal was hailed as a historic turning point after over 20 years of failed negotiations, nine months after that accord was inked, only 23 nations representing just 1.1 percent of global emissions have formally ratified it.

That list includes no G20 nation thus far. In order to become enshrined in law, at least 55 nations representing 55 percent of global emissions must sign up.

It requires all nations to create zero emissions by the second half of this century. The zero part is important as carbon emissions remain trapped in the atmosphere for centuries, meaning that even if all emissions stopped tomorrow, world temperatures would continue to march upwards for decades to come.

Last week, a coalition of investors managing some 13 trillion in assets called on the G20 to ratify the deal by the end of this year. The groups two largest members, the U.S. and China have promised to do so before December, but together they only account for 40 percent of global emissions.

Moreover, Donald Trump, the Republican Party's presidential nominee has vowed to scrap the deal if elected this November. And, whilst no country can single handedly cancel the accord, the former star of the Apprentice could undermine the emission cuts promised by the Obama administration, and weaken the resolve of other leaders skeptical about the deal.

Although renewable energy is fast catching up with fossil fuels as a legitimate source of power, according to Microsoft founder Bill Gates, "we need an energy miracle" on par with the the "personal computer. The internet. The polio vaccine."

Much like the abolition of slavery, the end of apartheid and the spread of universal suffrage, radical change can happen when brave people stand up and demand to be heard: In the words of Leonardo DiCaprio:

Climate change is real; it is happening right now. It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species, and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating.

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Where will we find the first telltale signs of the Anthropocene?  
The Anthropocene is the proposed geological period dominated by human influence on the environment. Now the task is to find one spot that bears its hallmarks  
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Planning For A Healthy New York Seascape  
Imagine arriving home one day, excited to see how work is going on the beautiful new deck you're installing. But the contractor's in a snit because there's a truck in the driveway blocking his way. That would be the electrician your husband hired to fix that old faulty wiring in the kitchen. You knew he was coming but you didn't know it was today. And now the repair man can't access the fuse box because your son's emo band Strawberry Slo-Jam has taken over the basement.

What the heck is going on? Everyone in the family needs to access the house, but there's a little coordination problem. Here in the city of islands, we have a similar challenge with our own home waters. The rich, diverse ocean wilderness that is New Yorkers' heritage and responsibility is an incredible place to fish, swim, and play. Its amazing wildlife includes everything from sharks, sea turtles, and shorebirds to whales, dolphins, and deep sea coral.


A humpback whale feeding offshore near New York City. Image: Julie Larson Maher/WCS.

But this beautiful seascape - which contributes $22 billion to the state's GDP, supports more than 313,000 jobs, and offers countless recreational, cultural, and spiritual benefits - can also be crowded, noisy, and unpredictable. And it gets worse every day. A patchwork of more than 140 laws and 20 federal authorities currently govern the ocean, coasts, and lakes enjoyed by 20 million people.

Offshore wind installations are likely coming with the announcement of a proposed lease sale of 81,130 acres off of Long Island. Traffic at our already-busy port continues to increase while giant cargo ships grow ever larger thanks to maritime advances like the recent Panama Canal expansion. Rising sea levels and extreme weather events associated with climate change are reshaping our shores and threatening coastal communities.

Protecting the integrity of our ocean backyard requires us to understand how to accommodate all these uses. No one wants to wade through Strawberry Slo-Jam to get to their fuse box. That's where ocean planning comes in. Building on several years of work, New York and five of our neighboring states - together with federal agencies, tribes, and regional fisheries managers - have come together to create the first draft of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Ocean Action Plan.


Canyon Lobster. Image courtesy of Deepwater Canyons 2013 Expedition, NOAA-OER/BOEM/USGS.


To do so, they worked with stakeholders and scientists to gather the most up-to-date information on ocean use by humans and wildlife to produce a document that provides a framework for sustainable economic development while conserving our vulnerable marine ecosystems. But if this plan is going to work, it needs the support of all who care about our ocean habitat.

This draft of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Ocean Action Plan is a great first step, but it's not perfect. To maintain commitment to the plan's Healthy Ocean Ecosystem goal, the plan needs to set December 2016 as a deadline for identifying habitat critical for the health of our area's fish, sea turtles, whales, and other marine life, and commit agencies to conserving areas of high biodiversity.

Better understanding these areas will enable us to more thoughtfully balance decisions on ocean development with ecological impacts, while also allowing for appropriate human activities to continue. The plan should also make certain that agencies identify a set of objective indicators of ocean health to enable regular evaluation of the plan's effectiveness in achieving its goals throughout the Mid-Atlantic.

Here at the Wildlife Conservation Society's New York Aquarium, and across all WCS's zoos in New York City, education staff and high school volunteer docents are engaging kids in songs about sea life and playing a newly developed ocean planning board game with visitors to raise awareness about these issues. We are encouraging visitors to compose letters and drawings and sign a petition in support of smarter marine planning that WCS will submit to the Regional Planning Body (RPB).


New York Aquarium staff fitting an acoustic tag on a sand tiger shark off the coast of Long Island. Image: Julie Larsen Maher/WCS.


In the meantime, the federal and state agencies that created the Mid-Atlantic Regional Ocean Action Plan are intent on collaboration and transparent dialogue among those who manage the uses of the ocean, and to give the public a chance to discuss present and emerging issues with decision-makers. WCS's New York Aquarium and zoos have engaged visitors to join in that conversation. The plan is available for review and comment through September 6.

Take the time to add your voice to those who realize the value in promoting ocean health and coordinating multiple human uses of our busy ocean. If we act together, we can gain control of the situation; plan for responsible, long-term use of our resources; and protect our beautiful ocean home. There's no reason we can't have our beautiful deck and some long-overdue rewiring at the same time. Okay...and maybe a little Strawberry Slo-Jam, too.

-- 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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Tomás Insua: The Pope, The Patriarch And The Christian World Are Praying For Climate Justice Today - G20 Leaders Should Take Note  
Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians, in a prayer service on the Greek island of L...

Read more: Pope Francis, Pope, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, Christian, Catholic, Protestant, Church, Interfaith, Muslim, Jewish, Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist, Christianity, Climate, Global Warming, Climate Change, Prayer, g20, Politics, Economics, Environment, Nature, Poor, World, Creation, Paris, Air Pollution, Religion News

 
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Edward Flattau: A Post Trump World  
Given Donald Trump's denial of human-influenced climate change, what kind of world awaits us environmentally if he should get his way?

Here is the so...

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Dr. Mariappan Jawaharlal: What A Fish Knows: The Inner Lives of Our Underwater Cousins by Jonathan Balcombe  
When my first daughter was about six years old, I took her fishing for the first time in a small pond near Amherst, Massachusetts. I bought two fishin...

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Noah Greenwald: Taking A Stand For Washington's Wolves  
It's been a sickening week in the Pacific Northwest.

Snipers, including gunners in helicopters, have snuffed out half of Washington state's Profanity...

Read more: Endangered Species, Gray Wolves, Teen Impact, Ecology, Vegetarianism, Green News

 
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Deers with friends  

Miroslaw Tran posted a photo:

 
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Rare Footage of Pallas's Cat Cubs in Mongolia's Zoolon Mountains  

By Matthias Fiechter

The Pallas's cat is a small, little known wild cat species living in the steppes and mountains of Central Asia. Through a new research initiative “PICA” (Pallas's Cat International Conservation Alliance) launched earlier this year, conservationists are hoping to better understand this feline. The project is still in its early stages, but it has already produced some outstanding, rare footage of Pallas's cats, including video of wild cubs.

The footage (featured at the top of this post) was taken by a set of remote-sensor research cameras stationed in the Zoolon Mountains, in Mongolia's Gobi Gurvan Saikhan National Park. One sequence, shot during the night, shows three Pallas' cat cubs curiously examining the camera, while another snippet features an adult cat in broad daylight looking for signs of other animals.

First Footage of Pallas's Cat Cubs in This Part of Mongolia?

“This is the first footage of Pallas's cat cubs taken in this part of Mongolia as far as we know and is a valuable discovery from our project partners Snow Leopard Trust”, says David Barclay, Cat Conservation Officer at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS).

The cameras are part of the new international Pallas's cat conservation project, PICA, founded by the RZSS, Nordens Ark, a Swedish breeding center and zoo Nordens Ark, and U.S.-based conservation organization Snow Leopard Trust that aims to gather more information on the Pallas's cat, one of the world's least-studied felines.

“If we're hoping to conserve this mysterious cat, we need to first understand it, and we're hoping this study will bring valuable new insights.” — Emma Nygren, Nordens Ark

“We still don't know much about the Pallas's cat's behavior, or even it's true range,” says Emma Nygren, a conservation biologist at Nordens Ark who coordinates the research project. “If we're hoping to conserve this mysterious cat, we need to first understand it, and we're hoping this study will bring valuable new insights.”

The Snow Leopard Trust, which has been working in this part of Mongolia for more than a decade, is a technical and logistical partner in the project. “We're surveying these mountains for snow leopards anyway. The Pallas's cat shares the same habitat and is equally elusive, so it's a logical extension of our work to also look at them,” says Gustaf Samelius, Assistant Director of Science at the Snow Leopard Trust.

The study, which was made possible by the generous support of Fondation Segré, will continue for at least three years.

Matthias Fiechter is the Communications Manager for the Snow Leopard Trust, a Seattle, Washington-based charity with a mission to conserve the snow leopard and its mountain ecosystem through a balanced approach that considers the needs of local people and the environment.

More about the Pallas's Cat (IUCN Red List assessment and profile)

The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland was founded by visionary lawyer Thomas Gillespie in 1909 ‘to promote, facilitate and encourage the study of zoology and kindred subjects and to foster and develop amongst the people an interest in and knowledge of animal life'. The Society still exists to connect people with nature and safeguard species from extinction. Please visit here for information on all our conservation projects.

Nordens Ark  is a Swedish non-profit foundation working to protect endangered species through conservation breeding and reintroduction programs as well as through research, field conservations programs and education. Nordens Ark was founded in 1989 and focus on applied conservation actions in Sweden as well as abroad. The foundation works with a wide range of species from snow leopards and Pallas's cats to Lesser White-fronted Geese and Lemur-leaf frogs.

The Snow Leopard Trust, based in Seattle, Washington, is a world leader in conservation of the endangered snow leopard, conducting pioneering research and partnering with communities as well as authorities in snow leopard habitat to protect the cat. Please go to www.snowleopard.org for more information about our research and conservation programs.

Big Cats Conservation

The National Geographic Big Cats Initiative funds research to save snow leopards and other big cats in the wild: Saving Snow Leopards in Upper Mustang, Nepal, by Predator-Proofing Livestock Corrals

 
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Peter Neill: Where Does Water Come From?  
Where does water come from? It seems such a simple question, and the answer is known from our earliest science lessons when we are introduced to the w...

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DOD Tests Environmentally Friendly Motor Oil  

By Sarah Martin and Annie Reisewitz

The Department of Defense is taking action to be an environmental leader at defense facilities across the U.S.

Currently, the DOD, headed by the Defense Logistics Agency, is testing the use of biosynthetic motor oils on their non-tactical vehicle fleets. Several environmentally friendly lubricants companies have supplied bio-based motor oil to the DOD for demonstration projects across the U.S., including at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana. With nearly 40% of pollution in waterways coming from used motor oil, this is welcome news to help advance a new technology that need wider acceptance by large motor oil consumers.

Every year 10 billion gallons of liquid petroleum hydrocarbon, in the form of motor oil and other industrial lubricants, are released into the environment due to human activity. The majority of this coming in the form of silent oil spills, leaks from cars, and improper disposal of used oil—all contributing to the degradation of our environment and our water supply.

Almost all of the motor oils on the market today are made from refined petroleum. For years, the use of biosynthetic oils has been promoted as an environmentally friendly alternative but was long thought of as a “wouldn't that be nice” pie-in-the-sky idea that wouldn't work on a large scale in part due to the difficulty of using vegetable oils in high heat conditions like automotive engines. However, recent scientific advancements, including by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, have made this petroleum alternative dream very much a reality.

If the tests by the DOD shows that biosynthetic oils perform just as well, if not better, than the current oil being used, the switch to biosynthetic oils may be made Air Force and possibly DOD wide for use in their fleet of 200,000 vehicles in the future.

Increased availability of bio-based lubricant fluids would provide product source diversity; create additional options for government and commercial users as well as the average consumer; reduce dependence on oil imports; and decrease pollution in rivers and oceans.

Environmental as well as usability performance has become important to consumers and regulators. Today, these motor oils and lubricants made from non-toxic, environmentally friendly plant-based oils can protect us, and our environment and they are comparable to or better than petroleum oil when it comes to performance.

In the past, environmentally friendly lubricants have faced performance questions. But extensive testing has proven that biosynthetic oils not only exceed the most challenging environmental standards but also provide performance benefits not attainable with petroleum-based products alone.

This is just the beginning. Other federal agencies, such as the Department of Homeland Security's Law Enforcement Training School, are to begin testing biosynthetic oil later this year.

This large-scale change by the DOD would have widespread positive implications for our environment. While their testing will continue for the next 12-18 months there are steps that you can take to help reduce your environmental footprint. Ask your mechanic for a bio-based alternative the next time you go in for an oil change. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, just one gallon of motor oil can contaminate one million gallons of fresh water, so your small changes add up to a better environment.

About the authors:

Annie Reisewitz is a communications and marketing consultant for environmental and green technology initiatives. She manages the Silent Oil Spills public awareness campaign.

Sarah Martin has worked in environmental communications for the past several years. She works on the Silent Oil Spills campaign.

 
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Super low tide in London, Houses of Parliament and the Eye - 31.8.2016 (evening of bday)  

Christine's Observations posted a photo:

London's famous houses of parliament and the London Eye as seen from the Thames shore. Today was a magical day in London. Although the sky wasn't orange or pink, it was a subtle blue. Beautiful for pictures.

 
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NORTH AMERICAN ENDANGERED & PROTECTED SPECIES 80 CITES 1995 Leather Limited 2500 https://t.co/mfMqjIa9kv https://t.co/iZs1n5p6sN 
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Francis Aston Scientist of the DayFrancis William Aston, an...  

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Francis Aston Scientist of the Day

Francis William Aston, an English chemist turned physicist, was born Sep. 1, 1877.

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Red Panda  

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Spoiler alert: Why strange signals are never really from aliens  
Given the wealth of planets in our universe, aliens must be dwelling somewhere, right? Maybe. But we're never going to get our sci-fi moment, says Jacob Aron  
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DSC_5639  

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Thames

 
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What the River Knows: Amstel River at Amsterdam, Netherlands  

Photographs by Basia Irland

My name, Amstel, is derived from the old Dutch, Aeme-stelle, which means “water area.” In the 13^th Century, a small fishing village, Amstelredam, was constructed near my mouth beside a dam. Today we know that town as Amsterdam. As early as the 11^th Century, farmers began building dikes to try and keep me from flooding these low lands. In 1936 my mouth was filled in and sealed shut, so that today I end at Muntplein Square, although I remain connected to a body of water called the IJ by flowing underground through pipes. The IJ (an ancient Dutch word for water) used to be a bay, but currently is considered more of a lake. During the Dutch Golden Age in the 1600's Amsterdam was the wealthiest city in the world and one of the most important ports. My extensive system of canals, built during this time, is now on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Looking along a canal toward the Zuiderke Church, built in 1611 (and once painted by Monet).

I flow south to north through this flat and low-lying city, which is the capital of the Netherlands. Parts of me are below sea level, and some of the land around me was reclaimed from the nearby sea or marshes. Dutch children must learn to swim at an early age and receive diplomas for that effort. Some dive from houseboats and swim in my water, careful to dodge the variety of boats that are found day and night, moving upon my body.

A boy dives into the Amstel River.

All kinds of boats ply the river and canals.

I have a beer named after me! The Amstel Brewery is located along my shore, as are other breweries, and my water is sometimes used in the production of these beers. Renowned artists have painted my portrait including Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), Willim Witsen (1860-1923), and Piet Mondrian (1872-1944).

With the flat terrain, the inconvenience of driving a car, and over 400 kilometers (249 miles) of bike paths in Amsterdam, humans prefer to get around by bicycle. With well over a million bikes, it is no wonder so many two-wheelers are dredged out of my stomach each year.

Amsterdam is located on approximately ninety islands and linked by over 1,400 bridges that cross back and forth. Some of these bridges are especially wonderful at night, when their lights reflect on my dark water. One in particular, the Magere Brug, uses an Old Dutch design called a ‘double swipe'. In earlier times it was opened by hand, but now an electronic mechanism raises its two sections to let boats pass underneath to enter one of the many canals that traverse Amsterdam.

Magere Brug with the full moon.

Any visitor to this city will notice a lot of plastic trash floating on my surface, and there are currently attempts to clean up my 100 kilometers (60 miles) of canals. One such venture, Plastic Whale, is a company that fishes plastic bottles and other debris from my water and transforms the trash into material to make a boat that will be used to fish for more plastic. Boat Number Seven is constructed from over seven thousand plastic bottles that might otherwise have found their way out to sea.

Someone else who recycles trash from the canals is my dear friend, the meerkoet. These waterfowl use floating debris to create their unkempt nests, which are seen everywhere wedged amongst the houseboats. The meerkoet live on my surface, and enjoy tickling my ribs when they dive down to feed on plants. The monogamous pairs also eat aquatic insects, seeds, grass, and small animals, and they are one of my favorite playmates as I flow through Amsterdam.

A meerkoet and its nest in a boat tire.

A meerkoet nest built from river debris.

Fulbright Scholar, Basia Irland is an author, poet, sculptor, installation artist, and activist who creates global water projects. She is Professor Emerita, Department of Art and Art History, University of New Mexico, where she established the Arts and Ecology Program. Irland works with scholars from diverse disciplines building rainwater harvesting systems; connecting communities and fostering dialogue along the entire length of rivers; filming and producing water documentaries; and creating waterborne disease projects around the world. She lectures and exhibits internationally and is regularly commissioned to do artistic river restoration projects. Check out her work at basiairland.com

 
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Beach Sunset - New London Pride  

ampphirephotography posted a photo:

Ampphire Photography 2016.
New London Pride - August 27th 2016.

 
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Want To Make Better Predictions? Researchers Explore How  

Analyzing an event by breaking it down into details might seem like a good way to predict the outcome, but social science research suggests that when most of us do it, we make worse predictions.

 
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http://twitter.com/RS_Paris/status/771295771857604608 
In a world of 7 billion people, how can we protect endangered species ? https://t.co/yBGOY0dyQC @CITES @John_CITES https://t.co/M425JoycV4 
https://t.co/yBGOY0dyQC 

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German Caution, French Decisiveness: How Brexit Affects EU Defense Policy  
What's next for the European Union after Brexit? When it comes to defense policy, Germany and France need to step up to the plate. For Germany this will mean greater spending -- and more foreign deployments.  
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Kilauea lava flows to the ocean  

Full Text:

Rivers of lava from the volcano Kilauea leave a lava tube at a bench of new land at the Ka`ili`ili sea entry. The steam in the background is right at sea level and is caused by the boiling hot lava meeting the cool ocean water. With each wave, parts of these flows are covered by water, generating a blinding cloud of hot steam. Kilauea is the youngest and southeastern-most volcano on the big island of Hawaii. Topographically Kilauea, which is located on the southernmost flank of Mauna Loa, was thought to be an extension of its giant neighbor. However, research over the past few decades clearly shows that Kilauea has its own magma-plumbing system, extending to the surface from more than 60 kilometers deep in the Earth.

Image credit: ©Tom Pfeiffer

 
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Tasmanian devils evolve to resist deadly cancer  

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Tasmanian devils are evolving in response to a highly lethal and contagious form of cancer. A National Science Foundation-funded researcher and an international team of scientists discovered that two regions in the genomes of Australia's iconic marsupials are changing in response to the rapid spread of devil facial tumor disease (DFTD), a nearly 100 percent fatal and transmissible cancer first detected in 1996. The Washington University study suggests some Tasmanian devil populations are evolving genetic resistance to DFTD that could help the species avoid extinction. Additionally, the genomic data will support future medical research exploring how animals evolve rapidly in response to cancer and other pathogens.

Image credit: Menna Jones, University of Tasmania

 
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http://twitter.com/zooinspectors/status/771274340293812224 
@CITES (Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species) is not working it for these #animals WHY? https://t.co/8ubBnIaBnX 
https://t.co/8ubBnIaBnX 

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http://twitter.com/TaylorPriest2/status/771269006237978624 
In a world of 7 billion people how can we protect wildlife? #conservation #wildlife #CITES https://t.co/ps9RWvYLEi 
https://t.co/ps9RWvYLEi 

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Zipline Divide  

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POLL: Most Americans Want Congress To Make Zika Funding A High Priority  

That's what 76 percent said in a recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey. Half the respondents also said they'd be uncomfortable traveling to places in Florida where mosquitoes are spreading Zika.

 
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Shrinking Violets by Joe Moran review how to understand shyness  

Is being shy a boon or a burden? Should it be fought against? This sparkling cultural history ranges from Jane Austen to Silicon Valley

Joe Moran, like many of us, is shy. He is hopeless at small talk and feels he “should probably wear a badge that says: ‘Please do not expect sparkling conversation'”. Like most shy people, he has a dread of being boring. Thankfully Shrinking Violets, his “field guide” to shyness, exhibits all the sparkle and fluency on the page he might lack when chatting to strangers. Though he touches on his own experience, it's not a memoir, full of shaming revelations (of course it isn't): Moran says he prefers to hide “behind the human shield of people more interestingly and idiosyncratically shy than me”.

So he investigates the fifth Duke of Portland (1800-1879), who was so shy he communicated by posting notes into letter boxes inside his house, and asked the workers on his Welbeck Estate “to pass him as if he were a tree”. The duke is notable for spending a chunk of his vast fortune excavating grand, illuminated tunnels beneath his land so that when taking a walk he would never risk a meeting.

In the 80s, cardigan-wearing indie kids embraced the idea of being shy "as a personal and political philosophy"

As Hilary Mantel has said, the condition began to be regarded as "a pathology, not just an inconvenient character trait"

Continue reading...  
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Every breath we take  
Research from a cinema in Germany shows how the breath of a crowd can reflect how they're feeling, as Stephen Ornes reports  
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Every breath we take  
Research from a cinema in Germany shows how the breath of a crowd can reflect how they're feeling, as Stephen Ornes reports  
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http://redirect.viglink.com?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fenvironment%2F2016%2Fsep%2F01%2Ffrontline-bloody-battle-save-africa-elephants&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8  
Gentle giants: on the frontline of the battle to save Africa's elephants  

Across Africa, elephant poaching is happening on an industrial scale. Though elephant killing is down in Kenya and conservationists are hopeful, the battle to save the largest animals on the Earth is far from being won

In the Samburu National Reserve in northern Kenya, when the fierce heat of the sun has softened into a gentle evening glow, David Daballen and I climb into a jeep to find some elephants.

As we drive through the savannah, Daballen, a conservationist at Save the Elephants, points out family groups and individuals within them. “These are the Butterflies, this group is Storms, here are the Spices,” he says. We have been looking out for Cinnamon, the Spices' matriarch, and suddenly there she is: around 50 years old, huge and tuskless, having been born without any precious ivory. Close to her is Habiba, who was orphaned along with seven siblings when poachers killed their mother in 2011. The orphans were adopted by Cinnamon and the rest of the Spices.

They are a crucial part of the ecosystem, and an iconic species. Can you imagine them no longer existing?

Related: Elephants on the path to extinction - the facts

The rangers could hear the bull making death sounds a loud rumble

It's not like the battle has been won the threat is still very real but it's not on the scale of a few years ago

Elephants have a humbling effect on humans; they make us realise that perhaps we are not the masters of the universe

Related: Why the Guardian is spending a year reporting on the plight of elephants

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First test of oral rabies vaccine brings hope to the world's rarest canid  
A new study reports on field trials of the oral vaccine SAG2 in Ethiopian wolves, Africa's most threatened carnivore and the world's rarest canid. The trials are the first ever conducted in wild populations of an endangered carnivore.  
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.@John_CITES: “In the right circumstances, trade can be an incentive for managing wildlife sustainably” https://t.co/HMa5GplLmX 
https://t.co/HMa5GplLmX 

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In These Video Games, You Care for Badger Babies and Wolf Pups  
Swedish video game studio Might and Delight is making the fur fly.  
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Limousine Confessions: Inside the Car with a Celebrity Chauffeur  
"There are a lot of fringe benefits - I've had clients autograph certain things for me without my asking."  
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Bird bugs shed new light on malaria infection  
A study into bird malaria could provide important clues about the causes of parasite co-infections in animals, including people, report investigators. They found that not only the bird's habitat but also the interactions between parasites can impact a bird's risk of malaria infection.  
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RC-135 Taxiing At RAF Mildenhall  

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A USAF RC-135 Rivet Joint Taxiing at RAF Mildenhall during sunset

 
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August Sun over the Thames  

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Gorgeous August sunset over the Thames River in London, Ontario.

 
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New London Pride  

ampphirephotography posted a photo:

Ampphire Photography 2016.
New London Pride - August 27th 2016.

 
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Boardwalk - New London Pride  

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Ampphire Photography 2016.
New London Pride - August 27th 2016.

 
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Boardwalk - New London Pride  

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Ampphire Photography 2016.
New London Pride - August 27th 2016.

 
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Boardwalk - New London Pride  

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Ampphire Photography 2016.
New London Pride - August 27th 2016.

 
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Boardwalk - New London Pride  

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Ampphire Photography 2016.
New London Pride - August 27th 2016.

 
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Sunset Beach - New London Pride  

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Ampphire Photography 2016.
New London Pride - August 27th 2016.

 
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Sunset Beach - New London Pride  

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Ampphire Photography 2016.
New London Pride - August 27th 2016.

 
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Sunset Beach - New London Pride  

ampphirephotography posted a photo:

Ampphire Photography 2016.
New London Pride - August 27th 2016.

 
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Sunset Beach - New London Pride  

ampphirephotography posted a photo:

Ampphire Photography 2016.
New London Pride - August 27th 2016.

 
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Sunset Beach - New London Pride  

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Ampphire Photography 2016.
New London Pride - August 27th 2016.

 
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Sunset Beach - New London Pride  

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Ampphire Photography 2016.
New London Pride - August 27th 2016.

 
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Beach Sunset - New London Pride  

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Ampphire Photography 2016.
New London Pride - August 27th 2016.

 
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Beach Sunset - New London Pride  

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Ampphire Photography 2016.
New London Pride - August 27th 2016.

 
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Beach Sunset - New London Pride  

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Ampphire Photography 2016.
New London Pride - August 27th 2016.

 
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Beach Sunset - New London Pride  

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Ampphire Photography 2016.
New London Pride - August 27th 2016.

 
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Beach Sunset - New London Pride  

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Ampphire Photography 2016.
New London Pride - August 27th 2016.

 
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Beach Sunset - New London Pride  

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Ampphire Photography 2016.
New London Pride - August 27th 2016.

 
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Beach Sunset - New London Pride  

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Ampphire Photography 2016.
New London Pride - August 27th 2016.

 
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http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/08/31/491947946/how-an-edible-battery-could-power-medical-robots-you-swallow?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=technology  
How An Edible Battery Could Power Medical Robots You Swallow  

Tiny devices sent into the human body for diagnosing and treating diseases run on batteries that may contain toxic materials. Researchers have come up with a safer battery made of natural pigments.

 
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http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/08/31/491817890/how-snapchat-became-a-virtual-confessional-for-sexual-assault-victims?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=technology  
How Snapchat Became A Virtual Confessional For Sexual Assault Victims  

A journalist wanted to tell the stories of two rape victims while protecting their identities. How would he do it?

 
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http://www.npr.org/2016/08/31/492057152/fbi-warns-state-election-offices-to-be-wary-of-hackers?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=technology  
FBI Warns State Election Offices To Be Wary Of Hackers  

The FBI and other government security agencies are protecting against cyberattacks that might affect the elections. Hackers tried to gain access to two state voter registration databases this summer.

 
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http://www.npr.org/2016/08/31/492057159/how-1-video-game-is-trying-to-make-the-leap-to-esport?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=technology  
How Video Game 'Overwatch' Is Trying To Make The Leap To eSport  

There's lots of money to be made by turning a video game into a competitive sport, or eSport. There are millions of fans watching video game athletes compete for millions of dollars in prize money.

 
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http://www.npr.org/2016/08/30/491984291/facebook-faces-trending-news-problems-after-firing-curators?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=technology  
Facebook Faces Trending News Problems After Firing Curators  

On Friday, news site Quartz reported that Facebook fired its "news curators" and replaced them with algorithms to compile the news that ends up on Facebook's "Trending" news section. Many users took note when a fake article about Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly was trending.

 
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http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/08/30/491925278/-ifafricawasaschool-who-would-be-the-nerd-jock-most-popular?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=technology  
#IfAfricaWasASchool, Who Would Be The Nerd? Jock? Most Popular?  

A trending hashtag on Twitter invites people to personify countries in Africa with various schoolyard archetypes.

 
technology  

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Super low tide in London, Houses of Parliament and the Wheel  

Christine's Observations posted a photo:

London's famous houses of parliament and the London Eye as seen from the Thames shore. Today was a magical day in London. Although the sky wasn't orange or pink, it was a subtle blue. Beautiful for pictures.

 
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5 Things I Learned In My First Year As A Vegan  

A photo posted by nzinga young (@veganzinga) on Jun 17, 2016 at 6:14pm PDT

Going vegan has been a learning process.

Learning the atrocities of the meat and dairy industries and living more ethically are part of it, but here are other things I learned during my first year as an ethical vegan.

Exploitation is everywhere.

I was on vacation when I realized the $5 I paid to take a picture with a python was supporting its captivity. Colored candies I bought for my niece seemed vegan at the time, but were probably dyed with bug juice. Getting my sunscreen and multivitamins right was hard enough, but every few months I learned something new.

I didn't realize how pervasive animal exploitation is in our culture.

I didn't realize how pervasive animal exploitation is in our culture until I had to become more mindful. I'm a lot better now, but I'm sure there are a few more "uh oh" moments left in me.

Vegans are nicer in person.

My experiences with vegans online and offline have been very different.

Some online vegans can be pretty intense. Honest questions from aspiring vegans and differing views from well-meaning people are subject to brutal criticism in Facebook groups. There are more great vegans on social media than unnecessarily judgmental ones, but I have yet to meet a rude vegan offline.

The people I've met have been lovely. We can discuss differing opinions without raising our voices. We may not always agree, but we honor and respect each other for being different parts of the same fight.

I'm not sure if the anonymity of the internet makes people bolder or if I'm not in the right circles, but my view of vegans changed for the better when I started connecting in person.

A photo posted by nzinga young (@veganzinga) on Jul 20, 2016 at 6:35pm PDT

Activists are trying their best.

If you maintain a consistent argument and fight for full liberation, you're called a rigid abolitionist who's too stuck in your ways.

If you work for incremental change and improved conditions for farm animals, you're called a dirty welfarist who's doing more harm than good.

And let's not get started on vegans who urge us to consider the human rights issues tied into animal exploitation.

As a new vegan, I started to believe these reviews of vegan thought leaders, but I have yet to meet anyone from differing camps who wasn't passionate about animal liberation. The methods may differ from person to person, but the ultimate goal of freedom for all animals seems to be the same.

Connecting with vegans helped me formulate my own opinion about the biggest names in the movement. I may still disagree with their tactics -- especially ones that disrespect other social justice movements -- but everyone seems to be making an impact the best way they know how.

Intersectionality matters.

With a situation as dire as systematic murder, it's easy to focus solely on what's best for non-human animals. That's why it's important to have vegan organizations with a broader perspective. Groups that understand all oppression is intertwined and remind us that fighting for animals doesn't mean disregarding other injustices.

Collectively Free protests the forced impregnation of dairy cows and the underpaid Ethiopian workers that keep your favorite coffee shop in business.

Food Empowerment Project reminds us that the factory farm employees we often vilify are also being exploited.

Veganism is certainly about animals, but it doesn't mean we disrespect our own species along the way.

Veganism is certainly about animals, but it doesn't mean we disrespect our own species along the way.

I should be doing more.

I spent a lot of this year buying vegan without being vegan. I was caught up in vegan consumerism without doing anything to inspire change. I hope my latest initiative helps vegans everywhere get those closest to them to understand the importance of a vegan lifestyle.

My goal is to have a bigger impact during my second year of veganism. For more on my initiative to get our friends and family to go vegan, visit Wanyama Box.

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The Write Questions: Advice From The Wrong Side Of The Lens  

Photo by Rhododendrites (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

I am unashamed to admit it: I am terribly proud of my people.

To what "people" am I referring here? To doctors? To scientists? To astronauts and aspiring astronaut-types? I'm surely proud of all those people. Today, I'm referring to another group to which I belong; to something I've done on and off for more than half my life; to one of the most important things I've ever done, as well as one of the most important things that occurs in a truly free and democratic society. I am referring, of course, to the press.

My people - journalists - are amazing. We bust in doors behind which lie nefarious activities that undermine the basic tenets of our civil liberties. We point the spotlight on violations of human rights. We call "foul" when justice isn't being served and, in that sense, are our own sort of justice. Therein lies the agony and the ecstasy of the media: with words, sounds, and images, we convene trials, summon the accused, calls witnesses, and cause judgments to be made. Like an outstanding attorney, an excellent journalist solicits input from relevant experts and arranges concrete evidence in such a way that the jury - our audience - can make an informed decision. In outstanding journalism - not editorial, just plain ol' features about life and the people who live it - there's no need to prosecute or to defend. The facts, well-presented, do that for themselves. The facts, poorly presented or not presented at all, twist and maul the truth and raze our ability as professionals to educate, empower, and vouchsafe civilization.



Photo By Txbeaker [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons


These days, both facts and the way in which they are presented are more malleable than ever. When I first got into the field, it wasn't so. Back then, I inked an honest-to-god press. The thing was a behemoth - a giant born from the black depths of global mechanization. You basically had to wrestle it in order to get your paper out. Every word you fed into that thing you thought about. Then you thought about it twice and twice again, because lord knows you didn't want to go more rounds with that infernal machine than was absolutely necessary. My summer at The Otter Valley News and Views is witnessed by the ink particles still embedded deep within the lining of my lungs.

Photography used to follow a similar plodding, dedicated to-the-point-of-cultish course. At The Daily Californian, we photographers rolled our own black-and-white film, ran up and down at sporting events at nearly the same pace as the players, and worshiped the smell of fixer in the morning- or at least pretended to, because what we sweated (and sometimes bled) for mattered. Our shots were a critical part of the process. They provided more than just meaning and context. Photographs printed on paper drew people in: they gave the words our colleagues penned the opportunity to inform readers and transform the world for the better. That was before I graduated from college, before I built something that flew into space, before I ever laid hands on a patient. Long before I ever saved someone's life, through journalism, I was able to have a significant, positive impact on the lives of my fellow human beings. And also: really great calves.

So here I am, 18 years and several degrees later, dealing first-hand with journalism from the far side of the lens. A lot has changed. For one, the cameras are now in my face, not hanging about my neck as they ought to be. The questions will be coming my way. In 48 hours, my exit from "Mars" will be attended by 55 members of the media (and my brother, who has promised to heckle me "like a reporter"). On either side of me will be five very nice, very smart, very tired innocent bystanders: my crewmates, who have born a ceaseless onslaught of media for the last 12 months with an impressive amount of grace.

In return for our patience, we've had some outstanding coverage. My most sincere thanks to VICE, The History Channel, The Surge, BBC Stargazer, The University of Rhode Island, The British Journal of Medicine, Radio New Zealand, Voices from L5 and many others for your thoughtful, thorough, and accurate pieces. We've also had our share of "What the heck is this? We don't play xBox! No one has actually been chosen to go to Mars! As for sending robots ahead of time to build our shelters for us... it's a cool idea, but not, as some people would have you think, "a done deal." Those last two informational travesties resulted from what increasingly passes for reporting: taking a story written by someone else, distilling it (badly), sprinkling it with Googled facts, and passing it off as news.*

Here we arrive at something else that's changed since that fateful day when I talked my way into a job shooting mayoral candidates, house-fires, extra softball innings, and other natural disasters for a living: As much good journalism as there is (more than ever, really), really bad media abounds.

What's the disparity between good journalism and...not? Here's my view: a journalist gathers and contextualizes information such that readers can imbue it with social relevance and personal meaning. Making up facts, distilling other peoples' articles without adding value, and lifting quotes from blogs posts rather than conducting interviews is not journalism. It takes up space in news feeds, but it isn't news. Predigested and filling, it lacks mentally nutritional value while giving readers a serious case of brain gas.

True, there's always been fluff out there. Also true: like the scarlet letter, sensationalism used to be highly visible from a distance (and for the same reason). Clearly marked by cheap newsprint yellowing before it even hit the stands or by super-glossy covers with garish titles, these tabloids practically glowed when held against a dark background. If you wanted news, you had to pluck off your doorstep or out of a metal box at a busy intersection.

These days, good journalists and bad media are jammed into the same space. No books, no covers: just the great equalizer of pixels on a screen. In the digital age, the friendly labeling we once counted on to help us discriminate between medicine and poison - between information and aggrandizement - has faded away. A text from your mother and a text from a scammer claiming that your mother is in the hospital and needs $10,000 for a procedure appear exactly the same way on your phone's LCD. An opinion piece written on an iPad on the way home from work may look as, or more, legitimate than a Pulitzer-winning piece of investigative reporting. On the surface, these two often appear the same.

That's one major change since I got into this business in 1996. The other is that properly trained, properly-paid journalists are vastly outnumbered by people under deadline to write click-bait.

So: what's a simulated astronaut to do?

Fundamentally, my job, whether I'm an astronaut or a reporter or a doctor, is to make things work: to take the limited resources at hand and deliver a victory for the home team. Ship me anywhere in the 'verse. Make the delay 20 minutes, 200 hours, or 40 days and 40 nights. Whatever the apparent barriers, I won't abandon my people - many of whom are or could be good writers who aren't given the time or training to make their product what it rightfully should be. I can't change that right now, but I can help even the odds stacked against us all by expediency, mediocrity, and inertia.

On 8/28 you will be able to ask us any question in the world. To help even the odds, here's a list of questions we've already answered many, many times:

• What have you learned?
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• What do you miss?
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• What did you eat?
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• Have you seen The Martian?
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• How did it feel to not have the Sun and the wind in your face for a year?
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• What's the first thing you're going to do?
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• What's been the biggest challenge about being on Mars?
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• Do you guys argue? How do you deal with conflict?
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• What do you do if someone gets sick?
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• Have there been any disasters during the mission?
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• Do you really want to go to Mars?
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• Did this mission - do any simulations - help pave the way for the human exploration of Mars?
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• How is this simulation different from Mars?
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• How did your families react to your decision to go into isolation?
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• Did you always want to be an astronaut?
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• Have you ever felt like quitting?
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• What will be the hardest part about coming back to Earth?
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• Would you do it again?
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• Are any of you signed up for the one-way trip?

We're very glad that people are curious enough about our mission to ask any question that comes to mind. At the same time, anyone locked in a box with no direct access to the outside world, no fresh food except the small amount that they can grow in whatever space they aren't sleeping on, and only five flatmates can easily imagine what they are going to miss: more friends, family, sunshine, wind, flowers, pineapple, sushi, long walks in the woods, and tailgating at Cal games (go Bears!). If "What do you miss?" was a mystery, thanks to the power of Reddit, six crew blogs, and countless news articles, that mystery has been solved.

To my fellow journalists out there: there are much better questions to be asked and answered. For the record, the questions that were truly mysterious until I arrived on "Mars" and have never/rarely been asked by the media are:

1. What turned out to be replaceable? What foods were replaceable, or even better/easier to make? What new favorite food took the place of the old one that you can't have?
   
   
2. You can't talk directly to your family - how well do the other things that you can do compensate for that? And how well does your new family, your crew, compensate for it?
   
   
3. While nothing can replace sunshine and wind, how well do the new adventures that you get to have compensate for their temporary loss? How well does the new filter between you and the world function to give you a sense of peace and the ability to accomplish things that you would struggle to accomplish otherwise, with the world knocking at your door?
   
   
4. Now that you have been there for a year, what message do you have for the people of Earth about their planet?
   
   
5. What message do you have for the folks designing the human Mars missions?
   
   
6. Name one total disaster - suits, radios, experiments, food recipes - and how, if you were able to salvage something from it, you did.
   
   
7. Name an epic win and how you accomplished it.
   
   
8. How is human society going to have to change to survive and thrive on Mars?
   
   
9. What do you expect will be extremely challenging for you when you return to Earth and what's your plan for overcoming that challenge?
   
   
10. What do you think will be the thing that you remember most - the dreaded memory and the cherished memory?
    
    
11. What's the weakness that could have torn this mission apart? What's the strength, or strengths, that saved it?
    
    
12. Did you find all the media attention flattering or annoying? How weird is it to be a journalist inside a Mars mission?
    
    
13. Did any of you get sick or get hurt? If that had happened on Mars would you have been alright?
    
    
14. Do you think that six people will be enough - or too many?
    
    
15. Did you get enough support from the people of Earth? What else could we have done to help this mission?
    
    
16. Do you plan to drive right away, or will you be re-integrating back into the operation of heavy machinery slowly?
    
    
17. What advice do you have for choosing the next crew?
    
    
18. Would you have tried to vote from space? How do you think that future Mars crews should handle the political process?
    
    
19. We talk a lot about the science of these missions - what the role of art, music, entertainment during these long voyages?
    
    
20. In a place where there's no money and nothing to buy, what do you value?

When we ask the right questions, we get people thinking, challenging assumptions, and pushing the boundaries of what ought to come next. These are free from me to you. Go to!

We Martians are ready to meet the press. We've been getting ready all year. All that we ask in return for the time that we're giving you the minute we hit dirt - I have to let you photograph me before I can so much as hug my husband - is this: be journalists. Be the truth-advocates who held this country together for hundreds of years. Adventurers like us are always good for a story. We scientists have been keeping things interesting for the last few centuries. Astronauts - bright and shiny! - are the new kids on the block when it comes to popular coverage, and deservedly so. We've faced dangers and made sacrifices for twelve long months, and we thank you for your attention. So please, come one and come all to the show. And when you come, bring the right questions. When the hatch opens and we finally present ourselves to you, that's the signal: It's YOUR turn to be the hero. To write our way into the future. To find the facts, solicit the opinions, and frame the stories that will make the last year - our lives in service to science and Earth and all of humankind - meaningful. To make the fact that I waited 366 days PLUS 10 minutes to hug my husband worthwhile. So let's do this, people. We scienced the heck out of this. Now, let's write the heck out of this.

You ask. We'll answer. Make me proud.


Courtesy of Wikimedia commons, public domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=197374

*Corrections were requested to all of these articles.

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Are Dogs Really That Different From Wolves?  
How are dogs and wolves similar and different? originally appeared on Quora - the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights.

Answer by Oliver Starr, wolf handler, wilderness advocate, on Quora:

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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• Malamutes
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• Shepherd-Collies
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• Border collies
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• Dachshunds
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• Pomeranians
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• Heinz-57 mutts
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• Varying wolfdog mixes
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• Selectively bred high-content wolf dogs
• 
  
• Wild-caught wolves (the one that ate me)
• 
  
• Offspring of same wild caught wolf
• 
  
• Offspring of lower-content wolfdogs
• 
  

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



More questions:​

• 
  
• Wolves: What should I do if I see a wolf in the wild?
• 
  
• Bears: What should I do if I encounter a bear in the wild?
• 
  
• Predators: Is it possible for humans to live safely alongside predators?
• 
  

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High Seas Biodiversity Agreement: the importance of sustainable access and benefit sharing  
As African States, we are fully cognisant of the contribution of oceans and seas to our development. In this regard, the far-reaching positive implications as well as the benefits of the BBNJ process will be understood and appreciated even more, now that we are standing at a juncture where ocean-based economic development is at the top of the agenda for many Governments.

©James Warwick/Wildscreen

We welcome and appreciate the fact that the process towards the negotiation and adoption of an Internationally Legally Binding Instrument under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is potentially one of the most significant in international environmental law-making in the twenty-first century. It promises to address legal, governance and regulatory gaps in UNCLOS, including the issues identified in the package agreed in 2011, namely the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction, in particular, marine genetic resources and questions on the sharing of benefits; measures such as area-based management tools, including marine protected areas; environmental impact assessments; capacity building and transfer of marine technology.

We are also of the view that the application of the common heritage of mankind principle in the new treaty would serve both to promote a sustainable access regime and ensure a benefit-sharing regime. The sharing of benefits is the key element for which the common heritage of mankind is best known. As John Noyes observes, benefit sharing reflects the idea of the need to promote the development of developing countries--an idea that is reflected in a multitude of international law instruments. The rationale for a benefit-sharing element of the common heritage of mankind is captured in the famous statement of the then Permanent Representative of Malta to the United Nations, Ambassador Pardo, warning against the failure to implement the common heritage of mankind principle. Ambassador Pardo warned that, "There would be intolerable injustice that would reserve the plurality of the world's resources for the exclusive benefit of less than a handful of nations. The strong would get stronger, the richer would get richer, and among the rich themselves there would arise an increasing and insuperable differentiation between two or three and the remainder." Ambassador Pardo's argument, and, indeed, the foundation of the common heritage of mankind principle's benefit-sharing component, is based on the pursuit of a more equitable framework.

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post in partnership with Ocean Unite, an initiative to unite and activate powerful voices for ocean-conservation action. The series is being produced to coincide with the UN's Preparatory Committee Meeting (Aug 26-Sept 9) on an internal legally binding instrument on marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction and is a part of HuffPost's "What's Working" initiative, putting a spotlight on initiatives around the world that are solutions oriented. To read all the posts in the series, read here.

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Is Signal From HD164595 Evidence Of Aliens Or Just Another False Alarm?  
Social media and news outlets the past few days have been abuzz with the prospects of a strong signal apparently coming from the star unromantically known at HD 164595, which is about 94 light years from Earth. Reading news reports, one would think that the signal was intercepted last week, but actually it was picked up over a year ago in May of 2015.

Indeed, the buzz is reminiscent of extensive news coverage that surrounded KIC 8462852, now known as Tabby's Star, last year when it was suggested by Penn State astronomer Jason Wright that the star's odd dimming behavior might be the result of an alien civilization building a mega-structure blocking the star's light. We've also seen recent fascination with the discovery of a rocky planet orbiting inside the habitable zone around Proxima Centauri, which is quite near (by galactic standards) Earth at a little over 4 light years distant. It's our next-door neighbor.

Scientists have been careful in expressing optimism over these unusual discoveries, noting that neither of the candidates for extraterrestrial civilizations are anything more than interesting at this point. There is no evidence right now that something artificial is going on either around KIC 8462852 or HD 164595 and it's not even certain that the signal under discussion now came from HD 164595.

Both METI International, using the Boquete Optical SETI Observatory in Panama, and the SETI Institute, using the Allen Telescope Array in California, have plans to train their observational equipment on HD 164595 to see if anything interesting might emerge that supports, or discounts, the idea that the signal was artificial. Perhaps something intriguing will show up.

However, SETI astronomer Seth Shostak makes several good points about the problems with HD 164595 being a signal from a civilization. For example, it would have required a great deal of power to generate the signal we received -- either the equivalent of all of humanity's power usage on Earth if it were aimed directly at us or the equivalent of the entire power output of the Sun if the broadcast was omnidirectional.

Neither of these conditions are impossible, but they should raise eyebrows. Oddly enough, it's the argument for the lower level of power usage that should raise significant questions. If the signal were a beacon aimed at Earth, we are forced to ask, why? At 94 light years away, as Shostak notes, our television and other signals have not yet had time to reach HD 164595. How would they know we are here? Of course, 94 years ago they may have had technology that would allow them to detect our presence, even if we were not sending out much in the way of signals at that time. But it's difficult to imagine how they would pick up the presence of Earth civilization as it existed in 1920. And if they were somehow able to do this, why would they send a message to a civilization that didn't look as though it could respond?

Perhaps they are both prescient and very patient. They knew that a century later, humans would have the capacity to send out signals at the speed of light, so they anticipated that. And they are patient enough to wait two centuries for an answer.

This explanation is possible, but if that alien civilization were anything like us, it would seem pretty unlikely. It's best to expect other explanations will work better for this signal until we have more evidence. Of course, if the signal doesn't appear again, it may be little more than another fascinating data point like the WOW! Signal, that showed up once leaving little more than a tantalizing mystery.

The public and news media should keep in mind that science is a system of organized skepticism. And it's that way for a good reason; skepticism keeps us from drawing unwarranted conclusions from what we observe. When it comes to SETI, we should avoid getting too excited about possible signals of artificial and extraterrestrial origin, because usually there is a better explanation than little green men from Alpha Centauri, whether or not it's a beautiful place that we ought to see.

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@CITES Convention International Trade in @endangered Species notprotecting #elephants see @BFFoundation Ivorytrade https://t.co/aTZMN4MvXN 
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Sunrise 31 Aug 2016  

Sculptor Lil posted a photo:

 
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London Eye  

prrobinson81 posted a photo:

I'd already got a couple of shots of the Eye on my walk around, however I realised the light had changed and managed to get back just in time to grab this shot in between the commuters who use the area.

 
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Tireless  

Andrew H-W posted a photo:

Olympus digital camera

 
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Tower Bridge  

tvrdypavel posted a photo:

Tower Bridge in London on a beautiful sunny day

 
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Big Ben  

tvrdypavel posted a photo:

Big Ben and Houses of parliament at dusk, London, UK

 
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http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.flickr.com%2Fphotos%2Ftvrdypa%2F29061137000%2F&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8  
Big Ben  

tvrdypavel posted a photo:

Big Ben and Houses of parliament at dusk, London, UK

 
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http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fgo.theregister.com%2Ffeed%2Fwww.theregister.co.uk%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2Fobject_dents_sentinel1a_satellite%2F&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8  
Drama in orbit: Brazen UFO attacks Earth's Sentinel-1A satellite  

Plucky climate-change probe fends off cosmic intruder

The European Space Agency's Sentinel-1A satellite has been hit by an unidentified flying object while in orbit. Panic not: the probe remains fully operational.…

 
science  

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http://redirect.viglink.com?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2016%2Faug%2F31%2Fsea-otters-killed-california-santa-cruz-beaches&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8  
Shooting deaths of sea otters in California prompt investigation  

Bodies of four male sea otters, a federally protected animal whose killing can be punishable with jail time, washed up on beaches over course of eight days

Federal and state officials are investigating the shooting deaths of California sea otters, after the bodies of four male otters were found washed up on beaches near Santa Cruz.

On Monday, the US Fish and Wildlife Service announced a $10,000 reward for information that will lead to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for fatally shooting three sea otters that were found between 12-19 August.

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http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fcarol-browner%2Fthe-game-changer-new-york_b_11803042.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dgreen%26ir%3DGreen&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8  
The Game Changer: New York's Clean Energy Standard and Nuclear Energy  
For years, I've said that when it comes to the challenge of fighting climate change, we will need every tool available to reduce carbon pollution and create opportunities for new clean energy technology.

Yet, despite a world that demands more carbon-free energy - not less - public policies have left some of the tools in the toolbox. Until now.

Last month, with the help of Governor Andrew Cuomo's leadership, the New York State PSC took unprecedented action in passing a Clean Energy Standard that, in addition to ensuring ample opportunity for more wind, solar, and energy efficiency, recognizes the important role of existing carbon-free nuclear power. This is a game-changer: never before has nuclear received economic credit for its environmental benefits.

New York State is now the first government to include nuclear in its clean energy policy, providing a mechanism that will help keep New York's nuclear energy plants open. In the wake of an energy market that did not previously adequately value this power, the state faced the very real prospect of having these plants shut down.

The consequences of these shutdowns would have been dire, as New York's existing nuclear power plants provide the majority of its carbon-free power. In fact, New York's nuclear plants provide 61 percent of the state's emission-free electricity and avoid 26 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually, equating to a societal value of almost $1.2 billion annually based on federal estimates.

Not only does New York recognize that meeting its own carbon reduction targets would be impossible without nuclear, achieving the carbon pollution reductions set forth in the federal Clean Power Plan would become virtually impossible in the near term. Any premature nuclear plant shutdown would represent a setback in the state reaching its clean energy goals.

The same goes for states across the country, where nuclear is the source of the bulk of our carbon-free power today. For example, in the case of the closure of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in late 2014, the plant's output was replaced by natural gas-fired generators, which produced an additional 3.1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in New England in 2015.

And, a recent report issued by Bloomberg New Energy Finance found that if currently unprofitable nuclear energy plants were to shut down and were replaced with gas-fired generators, there would be an increase of 200 million tons of carbon pollution from power plants every year.

Across the country, a number of other states face the prospects of premature nuclear plant shutdowns, threatening our position as a clean energy leader. The timing couldn't be worse. The ten hottest years on record have all occurred since 1998. More carbon pollution will only exacerbate the problem.

Now more than ever, states should look to New York as a model as to how they can fairly value all forms of clean energy for their carbon free attributes.

Last month's news represents a meaningful step in the fight against climate change that will impact our energy policy outlook for decades to come. This is a worthwhile cause that Governor Cuomo should be acknowledged for undertaking, not only for the sake of cleaner air, but for establishing a common sense and fair policy of recognition for nuclear that ensures that nuclear power remains a vital component of our clean energy strategy for years to come.

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

 
gaia  

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http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fcarol-browner%2Fthe-game-changer-new-york_b_11802988.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dgreen%26ir%3DGreen&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8  
The Game Changer: New York's Clean Energy Standard and Nuclear Energy  
For years, I've said that when it comes to the challenge of fighting climate change, we will need every tool available to reduce carbon pollution and create opportunities for new clean energy technology.

Yet, despite a world that demands more carbon-free energy - not less - public policies have left some of the tools in the toolbox. Until now.

In August, with the help of Governor Andrew Cuomo's leadership, the New York State PSC took unprecedented action in passing a Clean Energy Standard that, in addition to ensuring ample opportunity for more wind, solar, and energy efficiency, recognizes the important role of existing carbon-free nuclear power. This is a game-changer: never before has nuclear received economic credit for its environmental benefits.

New York State is now the first government to include nuclear in its clean energy policy, providing a mechanism that will help keep New York's nuclear energy plants open. In the wake of an energy market that did not previously adequately value this power, the state faced the very real prospect of having these plants shut down.

The consequences of these shutdowns would have been dire, as New York's existing nuclear power plants provide the majority of its carbon-free power. In fact, New York's nuclear plants provide 61 percent of the state's emission-free electricity and avoid 26 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually, equating to a societal value of almost $1.2 billion annually based on federal estimates.

Not only does New York recognize that meeting its own carbon reduction targets would be impossible without nuclear, achieving the carbon pollution reductions set forth in the federal Clean Power Plan would become virtually impossible in the near term. Any premature nuclear plant shutdown would represent a setback in the state reaching its clean energy goals.

The same goes for states across the country, where nuclear is the source of the bulk of our carbon-free power today. For example, in the case of the closure of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in late 2014, the plant's output was replaced by natural gas-fired generators, which produced an additional 3.1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in New England in 2015.

And, a recent report issued by Bloomberg New Energy Finance found that if currently unprofitable nuclear energy plants were to shut down and were replaced with gas-fired generators, there would be an increase of 200 million tons of carbon pollution from power plants every year.

Across the country, a number of other states face the prospects of premature nuclear plant shutdowns, threatening our position as a clean energy leader. The timing couldn't be worse. The ten hottest years on record have all occurred since 1998. More carbon pollution will only exacerbate the problem.

Now more than ever, states should look to New York as a model as to how they can fairly value all forms of clean energy for their carbon free attributes.

Last month's news represents a meaningful step in the fight against climate change that will impact our energy policy outlook for decades to come. This is a worthwhile cause that Governor Cuomo should be acknowledged for undertaking, not only for the sake of cleaner air, but for establishing a common sense and fair policy of recognition for nuclear that ensures that nuclear power remains a vital component of our clean energy strategy for years to come.

-- 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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http://twitter.com/BrettWHowell/status/771091207669878784 
In a world of 7B people how can we protect #wildlife? #iucncongress #COP17 #CITES @conservationx @perctweets https://t.co/MfjRvWYnGN 
https://t.co/MfjRvWYnGN 

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http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theatlantic.com%2Fvideo%2Findex%2F497933%2Fadapting-to-hearing-loss-in-old-age%2F%3Futm_source%3Dfeed&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8  
Adapting to Hearing Loss in Old Age  

The slow decline of hearing in old age is frustrating and alienating. Tyler Trumbo's short documentary, The Sound Inside, follows three elderly people who are taking a lip-reading class to mitigate the effects that hearing loss will have on their lives. The film focuses heavily on sound design and mirrors the silence and muffled noises that have become these characters' realities. “When you can't hear, you don't know what you can't hear,” says one woman. “Without the hearing aid, suddenly I feel like I've dropped in a black hole. All I hear is the noise in my head.”

 
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