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astronomy

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"Gigantic Compared to Our Solar System" --Two Massive Holes Caused by Dark Matter Observed Just Outside Milky Way"

The discovery of two massive holes punched through a stream of stars could help answer questions about the nature of dark matter, the mysterious substance holding galaxies together. Researchers have detected two massive holes which have been ‘punched' through a stream of stars just outside the Milky Way, and found that they were likely caused by clumps of dark matter, the invisible substance which holds galaxies together and makes up a quarter of all matter and energy in the universe.

The scientists, from the University of Cambridge, found the holes by studying the distribution of stars in the Milky Way. While the clumps of dark matter that likely made the holes are gigantic in comparison to our Solar System with a mass between one million and 100 million times that of the Sun they are actually the tiniest clumps of dark matter detected to date.

“While we do not yet understand what dark matter is formed of, we know that it is everywhere,” said Dr Denis Erkal from Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy, the paper's lead author. “It permeates the universe and acts as scaffolding around which astrophysical objects made of ordinary matter such as galaxies are assembled.”

The results, which have been submitted to the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, could help researchers understand the properties of dark matter, by inferring what type of particle this mysterious substance could be made of. According to their calculations and simulations, dark matter is likely made up of particles more massive and more sluggish than previously thought, although such a particle has yet to be discovered.

Current theory on how the universe was formed predicts that many of these dark matter building blocks have been left unused, and there are possibly tens of thousands of small clumps of dark matter swarming in and around the Milky Way. These small clumps, known as dark matter sub-haloes, are completely dark, and don't contain any stars, gas or dust.

Dark matter cannot be directly measured, and so its existence is usually inferred by the gravitational pull it exerts on other objects, such as by observing the movement of stars in a galaxy. But since sub-haloes don't contain any ordinary matter, researchers need to develop alternative techniques in order to observe them.

The technique the Cambridge researchers developed was to essentially look for giant holes punched through a stream of stars. These streams are the remnants of small satellites, either dwarf galaxies or globular clusters, which were once in orbit around our own galaxy, but the strong tidal forces of the Milky Way have torn them apart. The remnants of these former satellites are often stretched out into long and narrow tails of stars, known as stellar streams.

“Stellar streams are actually simple and fragile structures,” said co-author Dr Sergey Koposov. “The stars in a stellar stream closely follow one another since their orbits all started from the same place. But they don't actually feel each other's presence, and so the apparent coherence of the stream can be fractured if a massive body passes nearby. If a dark matter sub-halo passes through a stellar stream, the result will be a gap in the stream which is proportional to the mass of the body that created it.”

The researchers used data from the stellar streams in the Palomar 5 globular cluster to look for evidence of a sub-halo fly-by. Using a new modelling technique, they were able to observe the stream with greater precision than ever before. What they found was a pair of wrinkled tidal tails, with two gaps of different widths.

By running thousands of computer simulations, the researchers determined that the gaps were consistent with a fly-by of a dark matter sub-halo. If confirmed, these would be the smallest dark matter clumps detected to date.

“If dark matter can exist in clumps smaller than the smallest dwarf galaxy, then it also tells us something about the nature of the particles which dark matter is made of namely that it must be made of very massive particles,” said co-author Dr Vasily Belokurov. “This would be a breakthrough in our understanding of dark matter.”

The reason that researchers can make this connection is that the mass of the smallest clump of dark matter is closely linked to the mass of the yet unknown particle that dark matter is composed of. More precisely, the smaller the clumps of dark matter, the higher the mass of the particle.

Since we do not yet know what dark matter is made of, the simplest way to characterise the particles is to assign them a particular energy or mass. If the particles are very light, then they can move and disperse into very large clumps. But if the particles are very massive, then they can't move very fast, causing them to condense in the first instance into very small clumps.

“Mass is related to how fast these particles can move, and how fast they can move tells you about their size,” said Belokurov. “So that's why it's so interesting to detect very small clumps of dark matter, because it tells you that the dark matter particle itself must be very massive.”

“If our technique works as predicted, in the near future we will be able to use it to discover even smaller clumps of dark matter,” said Erkal. “It's like putting dark matter goggles on and seeing thousands of dark clumps each more massive than a million suns whizzing around.”

The Daily Galaxy via University of Cambridge

"Cloud D" in Nearby Dwarf Galaxy --Obscures Spectacular Cluster of Massive Stars Billion Xs Brighter Than Our Sun

"Large Chunk of Milky Way's 1st Generation Stars are Missing"

Alien Invaders of the Milky Way - The Daily Galaxy --Great Discoveries Channel

NASA/Hubble: "For Far-Future Milky Way Civilizations Evidence of Big Bang and Evolution Will be Erased"

Mystery Star Clusters of Elliptical Galaxy Centaurus A --"Something Dark, Hidden and Massive"

"Milky Way Danger Zone" --Solar-System Devouring Mini Black Holes (Today's Most Popular) - The Daily Galaxy --Great Discoveries Channel

astronomy

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astronomy

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Aeolus launch contract

europeanspaceagency posted a photo:

The contract between ESA and Arianespace to launch the ADM-Aeolus satellite was signed on 22 July 2016 by ESA's Director of Earth Observation Programmes, Josef Aschbacher, (left) and CEO of Arianespace, Stéphane Israël, (right) in the presence of Jan Woerner, ESA Director General, (centre), at ESA headquarters in Paris, France. Aeolus will be launched on a Vega rocket from Europe's Spaceport near Kourou in French Guiana at the end of 2017. Using novel laser technology, this new mission will provide profiles of wind, aerosols and clouds to advance our understanding of atmospheric dynamics and to improve weather forecasts.

Read more: Vega to launch ESA's wind mission

Credit: ESANadia Imbert-Vier, 2016

astronomy

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culture

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Sit! Stay! Spell!

“Alphabet” border, designed by William Wegman, distributed by A/D Gallery, New York, 1993.
Gift of A/D Gallery. 1997-108-1

William Wegman's 1993 “Alphabet” border is a charming representative of the vast body of children's wallpaper that has been around since the 19th century.

Wegman began photographing his Weimaraners in 1970, and his photographs became a favorite with adults and children alike. After all, what's not to like about a beautiful dog holding a goofy pose?

The border elevates Wegman's dogs from cute to educational by arranging them into letters of the alphabet from A to Z. It was available in white, blue and rust and each color was printed in a limited edition of 1,500, each signed and numbered by the artist.

The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum contains children's wallpapers dating back to the 1870s. While early children's wallpaper was designed to be instructional, it didn't capture the whimsy exuded by this border, for which Wegman also designed a complementary sidewall paper.

Wegman started out as a painter, receiving degrees from the Massachusetts College of Art, Boston and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 1970, he moved to southern California to teach at California State College, Long Beach. That's when he purchased his Weimaraner, Man Ray, and began photographing him in unusual poses. This photography continued in 1986 with the addition of Fay Ray, another Weimaraner, and then with her offspring. Wegman has created numerous books for children and adults, and film and video for such companies as Saturday Night Live, Nickelodeon and Sesame Street.

The post Sit! Stay! Spell! appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

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Hungarian poster for ZABRISKIE POINT (Michelangelo Antonioni,...

Hungarian poster for ZABRISKIE POINT (Michelangelo Antonioni, USA, 1970)

Designer: Laszlo Lakner

Poster source: Film/Art Gallery

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On Hirshhorn plaza, demolished '92 Dodge keeps pulling in the curious

Visitors to the Hirshhorn plaza encounter “Still Life with Spirit and Xitle.” (Photo by John Barrat)

Although it has no magnetic properties, the 9-ton red volcanic boulder on the plaza of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden keeps pulling people in from the nearby sidewalk on Independence Avenue. Perhaps it is the boulder's painted-on smirk or the fact that it sits atop a 1992 Dodge Spirit, creating, as a recent press expounds: “a slapstick disaster scene… part performance, part sculpture.”

“Joyful and cathartic,” is how Hirshhorn Chief Curator Stéphane Aquin described the sculpture “Still Life with Spirit and Xitle” on a recent August morning as he watched person after person curiously approach and then examine the artwork. Many took selfies with the smashed car and rock.

“On a very simple level, people just see a rock on a car and they say, ‘God this is fantastic,' because they wouldn't dream of wanting to see that on their car,” Aquin says. “And then some would, because they hate their car.”

Created by expatriate American artist Jimmy Durham in 2007, the Hirshhorn recently acquired the sculpture following its appearance in the 2015 Art Basel exhibition in Miami Beach. “It was truly the star of the art fair,” Aquin recalls. “I don't know if it is a sign of the quality of a work, but definitely of its public appeal, it blew up on Instagram. It was really the most spectacular thing in the fair.”

Durham's name for the sculpture refers to the ancient Mexican volcano Xitle (shy-tuhl) which means, “Spirit.” It erupted around 245-315 AD and engulfed the then-prominent city of Cuicuilco in lava. Durham had a 9-ton boulder quarried from near the buried city which was then placed by crane upon the roof of the Dodge Spirit. As a finishing touch, Durham painted a smug, cartoon-like face on the boulder.

Still Life with Spirit and Xitle” on the Hirshhorn plaza (Photo by John Barrat)

“It's sort of an open metaphor of the revenge of nature over culture,” Aquin explains. “It represents the encounter of two forms of spirit, one ancient, mythological and physical and the other—a Dodge Spirit—a car produced in Mexico.

Durham, who had lived in Mexico between 1987 and 1994, was aware of other associations with the car, Aquin says. “Because it was a powerful car undercover police would use them, as well as drug dealers…so it has associations of shady, nefarious government force.”

Although the volcanic rock appears to have landed violently upon the car, Hirshhorn staff placed it gently down with a crane. The boulder's weight had already bent the car's frame, pushing it down to the ground. “There is no car that's going to take 9 tons,” Aquin says.

Its placement on the plaza in front of the Hirshhorn's main entrance is not arbitrary, Aquin adds. Car and rock sit atop the only concrete pillar that supports the plaza from below. “We had X-rays done to locate the plaza pillar and determine the exact position where we could safely place it,” Aquin explains. “Anywhere else and it may have dropped straight down,” into the Hirshhorn's basement.

A crew of Smithsonian staff use a crane to install Jimmy Durham's sculpture “Still Life with Spirit and Xitle” on the Hirshhorn Plaza.

After numerous walks around the museum while observing the constant flow of pedestrians in the vicinity, Aquin and other HMSG staff determined that a large percentage of the Hirshhorn's visitors travel to the museum from the Air and Space Museum and L'Enfant Plaza Metro, walking west along Independence Avenue. With this in mind, the Dodge is aimed at an angle with its headlights pointing at these walkers as they approach the Hirshhorn's south plaza entrance. The sculpture is “a show stopper,” Aquin says. “Everyone stops. It's just a simple thing but no one gets over it.”

How does one preserve a demolished car? “It's complicated,” Aquin observes. As per Durham's wishes the elements will be allowed to take their toll upon the car. “We know the car is going to dilapidate over time. In 60 years it will be totally different and down the line it will disappear. Durham suggested at some point we replace the car with a typical Washington, D.C. diplomatic limousine…something like a Cadillac Escalade, a motorcade car,” Aquin says. “But if we do that then the question arises what do we do about the sculpture's title? We lose the Dodge Spirit.”

For the rock, geologists and volcanologists have been invited to assess the cracks in the rock and, as a few plants have grown on its top, a botanist also is being consulted.

“Still Life with Spirit and Xitle,” signals a new direction for the Hirshhorn more than anything else, Aquin says. “It's only one work but it has transformed the plaza and the whole look of the building. Little by little that's what we are trying to do.”

The post On Hirshhorn plaza, demolished '92 Dodge keeps pulling in the curious appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

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Three New books mark museum opening

To commemorate the opening of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture three new books have been released by Smithsonian Books: Dream a World Anew: The African American Experience and the Shaping of America; Begin with the Past: Building the National Museum of African American History and Culture; and National Museum of African American History and Culture: A Souvenir Book. Each book will be available in the museum store beginning with the museum's opening on Sept. 24. On Sept. 27 the books will be widely available elsewhere.

Dream a World Anew: The African American Experience and the Shaping of America uses objects and stories from the museum to examine the African American experience. It presents a sweeping history that includes the path from slavery to freedom, the struggle during Reconstruction and the civil rights movement, and the swell of major social, political and economic changes since 1968. The book also celebrates the achievements of extraordinary black musicians, writers, performers, athletes and artists who influenced American cultural identity.

Begin with the Past: Building the National Museum of African American History and Culture presents the long history of efforts to build a permanent place to collect, study and present African American history and culture. It traces the appointment of the director, the selection of the site and the process of conceiving, designing and constructing a public monument to the achievements and contributions of African Americans.

National Museum of African American History and Culture: A Souvenir Book showcases the treasures of the museum's collections. Highlights include a silk lace-and-linen shawl given to Harriet Tubman by Queen Victoria, Pullman Porter train cars and uniforms, the jacket and skirt worn by Marian Anderson for her 1939 Lincoln Memorial concert, Negro League baseball banners and jerseys, a Tuskegee Airman flight jacket and Chuck Berry's Cadillac. All of these objects and many more are accompanied by captions explaining their significance and role in the nation's history.

The post Three New books mark museum opening appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

culture

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design

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Supple Studio gives D.R.A.W interlocking “D” identity

Supple Studio has designed an identity system for D.R.A.W Recruitment using an interlocking “D' device and the strapline “The Art of the Perfect Fit”.

The new company was formed from the merger of Drummond Read Recruitment and Art//Work and specialises in sourcing talent from the fine arts, antiques and luxury markets.

Supple creative director Jamie Ellul, who was invited to tender, says: “The client had already spotted that their existing company names formed the acronym D.R.A.W; it felt like a gift of a name with a genuine back story.

“But we wanted to avoid the obvious solution of drawing things or sketching, so we took the angle of people being ‘drawn together' which led to ‘the perfect fit'.”

An interlocking D monogram was also created and Ellul says he “worked with the client to choose a range of materials that got across D.R.A.W.'s diverse client base and candidates from classic to contemporary.”

The main points of interaction for service users are the website and jobs board. Ellul, who also worked on these, says: “We've kept the design very classic using black and white throughout, with the only ping of colour being the monogram logos.

We were conscious of the fact it's a very discerning audience, so a neutral classic approach seemed to make sense. The typeface we've used is Value by Colophon, which lends a little quirkiness to the design, but still feels in keeping with the classic feel.”

The post Supple Studio gives D.R.A.W interlocking “D” identity appeared first on Design Week.

design

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design

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Moves & changes industry news

People

Rebecca Kirrane has joined Decibel Digital as a UX/UI designer, moving from commerce consultancy, Salmon.

Bentley has appointed John Paul Gregory to lead its exterior design division. Gregory's first production car is likely to be the new Bentley Continental GT.

Manchester-based studio Code Computerlove has announced the appointment of Amy Robinson as customer experience consultant. The role will see Robinson help bolster the studio's content, acquisition and conversion teams.

CloudTag has appointed Peter Griffith as chief creative officer to oversee the design, aesthetics and brand messaging of Cloudtag products. Griffith was formerly head of mobile phones design at Microsoft.

Consultancies

Jaywing has announced its acquisition of Leeds-based consultancy, Bloom. The consultancy hopes to grow the development and distribution of its data science-led products.

A new consultancy has been launched after the founder of Sumo Design, Jim Richardson, closed the business to focus on a new start-up. The creative team behind Sumo Sarah Tempest and Michael Sutton have launched their own consultancy in Newcastle, called Altogether.

Contact aimee.mclaughlin@centaurmedia.com if there have been any moves and changes in your consultancy.

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

design

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design

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Gordon's gin reveals new packaging design

Design Bridge and Diageo have worked together on the new packaging design for Gordon's gin, almost 15 years after the consultancy previously redesigned the gin brand's bottle.

Design Bridge's brief was to respond to the huge boom in interest in gin over the last few years, and “reassert Gordon's position as the top selling gin brand”, according to chief creative officer at Design Bridge, Graham Shearsby.

“We saw it as an opportunity to guide the packaging onto the next part of its journey,” says Shearsby. “It's always been quite a functional bottle, part of what we tried to do was bring more life to it.”

Taller, slimmer bottle

The new bottle is slightly slimmer and taller than previously, while the label has been applied to the D-shaped curved side of the bottle instead of the flat side like before.

“It was to get a bit more movement across the front label,” says Shearsby. “The bottle was a little bit too flat on the front, so this way it projects itself and will stand out on the shelf.”

Inspired by a trip to the brand's archives, which revealed an old advertising campaign with the tagline “the heart of a good cocktail”, along with heart-shaped labels from 1920s bottles, the heart symbol has become the focal point of the new design.

Hand drawn wordmark

The glass bottle itself has a heart shape with “botanical flourishes” embossed onto it, encircling the words “Estd. London 1769”.

Meanwhile, the Gordon's wordmark on the label has been redrawn by hand, and the brand's original boar logo has been made more visible, moving from the bottom to the front of the bottle.

The new design has also been introduced to Gordon's collection of flavoured gins, sloe, elderflower and cucumber, and to Gordon's Export gin. The newly designed packaging will roll out globally this month.

The post Gordon's gin reveals new packaging design appeared first on Design Week.

design

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design

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Ragged Edge refreshes Deliciously Ella branding

"Deliciously-Ella-Energy-Balls-Hazelnut-and-Raisin"

Ragged Edge has redesigned the visual identity for food blogger Ella Mills, commonly known as Deliciously Ella.

The rebrand includes a new design system and updated logo shared with health food restaurant Mae Deli, co-founded by Mills and her husband as well as the packaging for the blogger's first retail product, Deliciously Ella's Energy Balls.

“Reinforce personal connection with her followers”

Based on Mills' own signature, the logo features a hand drawn typeface and a “sunburst” shape that seeks to “reinforce her personal connection with her followers”, according to Ragged Edge.

The consultancy chose a hand drawn typeface Naive Line Sans for headlines and the monospaced Elementa Regular for body copy. Ragged Edge cofounder Max Ottignon says: “Used together, these feel approachable, warm and human.”

“Natural, simple and honest”

Meanwhile, the packaging for the energy balls has been designed to reflect Mills' three core values: “natural, simple and honest”. It combines bright colours designed to make it stand out on the shelf compared to other similar products and comes in a matte texture.

Ottignon says: “Much of Ella's popularity stems from her open and honest relationship with her followers. Maintaining that level of trust as her brand grows into new areas was crucial.”

“Our strategy set out to build on her core values and create a beautifully crafted design, with substance and weight.”

The Deliciously Ella Energy Balls launched at Whole Foods this month and will also be rolled out to selected supermarkets.

The post Ragged Edge refreshes Deliciously Ella branding appeared first on Design Week.

design

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https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/5-11-september-2016/pearlfisher-creates-visual-identity-new-liberating-chinese-tampon-brand/
This new tampon brand hopes to empower women in China

Consultancy Pearlfisher has created the visual identity and packaging for a new tampon brand which looks to empower women in China.

Fémme is a new product from Chinese company Yoai, which aims to increase the presence of and education about tampons in China, and change a “patronising” tone around tampons to associations with “confidence and positivity”.

2% of Chinese women use tampons

Recent research found that only 2% of women in China use tampons, with the majority citing the reason as inexperience with the product.

The new brand aims to shift shake conservative, traditional associations with feminine hygiene care in China, says Pearlfisher creative director Natalie Chung, through a “stylish and discreet” design.

Chinese characters used in branding

The logo is composed of a Chinese character symbolising womanhood encased with a circle, within a circle, all created in a “bold” red to symbolise menstruation.

A simple, sans-serif wordmark has been used, which aims to “elevate the product from basic pharmacy to high-end premium”, says Chung.

The packaging also aims to be “elegant” through embossing, the use of a foil logo and card inserts of line-drawn female forms which replicate Chinese characters.

Pastel colour code

Packs use a pastel colour scheme of blue, pink and green to indicate different product sizes, and there is educational information included on the back which aims to “dispel cultural misconceptions” and teach women how to use tampons.

Victoria Li at Yoai says the new brand identity is “based on a modern interpretation of Chinese values” rather than something “overtly westernised”, and hopes the product will help to “liberate” and offer more choice to women in China.

The post This new tampon brand hopes to empower women in China appeared first on Design Week.

design

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September sunset

ArtGordon1 posted a photo:

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September sky over London

ArtGordon1 posted a photo:

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Evening falls

ArtGordon1 posted a photo:

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Golden Sunset clouds

Sculptor Lil posted a photo:

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Sunset 7 Sept 2016

Sculptor Lil posted a photo:

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Spires

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1666 London

Tedz Duran posted a photo:

A 120m long wooden replica of 1666 London was floated down the River Thames between Waterloo Bridge and Blackfriars Bridge at sunset before it was set ablaze to mark 350 years since the Great Fire.

#a7rII #batis1885 #carlzeiss

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http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fvoices.nationalgeographic.com%2F2016%2F09%2F07%2Fthings-shouldnt-be-like-this-lingering-effects-of-perus-jungle-oil-spills%2F&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8
‘Things Shouldn't Be Like This': Lingering Effects of Peru's Jungle Oil Spills

"Jusoe — Jusoe Esash Unum holds leaves covered in oil near the banks of the Marañon River, months after the January Chiriaco spill. (Photo by Brett Monroe Garner)

By Rebecca Wolff, National Geographic Young Explorer Grantee

I hadn't grasped the true human consequences of oil spills until we immersed ourselves in the situation going on in Peru.

The stories our team heard of lingering illness and food insecurity were heartbreaking. “When the oil spill happened, [the doctors] arrived in the community and gave out a few medicines, and then they never came back. Things shouldn't be like this,” we were told.

By June 2016, 8000 individuals and at least 30 indigenous communities were affected. I never thought it could possibly get worse.

On August 10, the fourth oil spill since the start of 2016 was reported in the Peruvian Amazon.

At least 10 indigenous communities are impacted by the newest spill in the province of Condorcanqui, department of Amazonas. More than 20 similar spills have crippled the region over the past five years.

This latest spill has the potential to impact the Marañon River and the indigenous groups living there, including the Awajún who were affected by the January 25 spill in Chiriaco and the June 24 spill in Barranca. The Marañon is one of the most important rivers in Peru, starting in the Andes and eventually becoming a major tributary of the Amazon River.

Anger and frustration are reaching all-time highs across Peru. In February, after two spills saw over 3,000 barrels of crude oil flow into the Chiriaco and Morona Rivers, state-owned oil company Petroperú was told to cease pumping oil on their Nor Peruano pipeline. The 40-year-old pipeline is in a state of disrepair, the believed cause of the multiple spills this year.

A third oil spill in late June raised questions as to whether Petroperú had followed state orders to stop pumping oil and indicated the company had in fact been continuing to operate their faulty pipeline. One week after the June 24 spill, the Peruvian Supervisory Agency for Investment in Energy and Mining sanctioned Petroperú for pumping oil without permission. The company's president resigned during the controversy.

"Petroperuì — A Petroperuì oil cleanup crew works at site of the January Chiriaco Spill. (Photo by Brett Monroe Garner)

The cause of the newest spill has not been verified. The Agency for Environmental Assessment and Enforcement (OEFA) released a statement on August 11 saying the spill may have resulted from an intentional cut to the pipeline. However, advocates I work with in Peru feel that unconfirmed accusations like this only help shift the blame and responsibility for the spill away from Petroperú. It also remains unclear whether Petroperú ever received permission, after the June sanction, to pump oil again. People are demanding to know if Petroperú was operating illegally, once again putting the Amazon at risk.

Communities and indigenous organizations are often the first to report oil spills on their territories, yet they are not seeing swift legal action or recognition of their rights and needs in wake of these environmental disasters.

“Legal processes are often partial and incomplete. There is a major disconnect between the process and the expectations of affected communities,” anthropologist Rodrigo Lazo, one of our Peruvian collaborators told me. In the Amazon, many individuals simply feel that not enough is being done to help.

"Levitia, — Levitia, a mother affected by the Chiriaco spill stands in a field that was ruined by the oil spill. (Photo by Brett Monroe Garner)

For the past six months, my team and I have interviewed lawyers, community members, indigenous leaders, and advocates across Peru. The testimonies of those afflicted by the spills and those fighting on behalf of communities never waver. Oil spills have abruptly impacted livelihoods and health while polluting the land and rivers of the Amazon.

One mother worried about how she would feed her children when her farmland remained covered in oil, never cleaned up by Petroperú. A community leader explained the health and emergency food supplies provided in his area were not enough for the vast amount of people seeking support.

The number of oil spills occurring in the Peruvian Amazon is increasing at an alarming rate. As we wait to learn just how bad this fourth spill will be, I wonder about the countless stories never told of how oil spills impact human lives. I can only hope the inspiring indigenous leaders, communities, and organizations our team has met will keep fighting to make sure that a fair legal and social resolution is achieved for all those stricken by these tragic oil spills.

More by Rebecca Wolff and Team Member Kevin Floerke

Indigenous Amazonians Reeling From Oil Spills in the Jungle

Health Concerns, Food Insecurity Linger Months After Peruvian Oil Spills

Peru's Oil Spills Deserve the World's Attention

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Big Sunset

Alex Chilli posted a photo:

Somewhat exhausted view of Big Ben and Westminster Bridge - but couldn't resist as the sun was setting. Now for some less touristy shots I think...

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Wicked when Wet by George Benson

Wicked when Wet by George Benson

George Benson: Photos

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Photos of the Day: Sept. 7, 2016

Explore the news of the day with these images from around the world.
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Flowers+Black tea by Parag Bhagat

Flowers+Black tea by Parag Bhagat

Parag Bhagat: Photos

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Eclairs by T_Hilal

Eclairs by T_Hilal

My tiny happiness after a long&hard day.

T_Hilal: Photos

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Made With Your Values by BRXSON

Made With Your Values by BRXSON

Way, way, way above Times Square...

BRXSON: Photos

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Skiathos, Greece by Thom Graham-Wood

Skiathos, Greece by Thom Graham-Wood

Thom Graham-Wood: Photos

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Boom time for whales in the Arctic driven by the loss of sea ice
The unprecedented loss of sea ice at high latitudes has one benefit it has created ideal conditions for baleen whales
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色达清晨 by 曦哥很忙

色达清晨 by 曦哥很忙

曦哥很忙: Photos

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surviving ... by patrick verweire

surviving ... by patrick verweire

patrick verweire: Photos

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AGR by Lucas Chien

AGR by Lucas Chien

Lucas Chien: Photos

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The Space Shuttle Challenger rises through the skies above...

The Space Shuttle Challenger rises through the skies above Florida on February 3, 1984.

With the first release of my book tomorrow in the United Kingdom, I have been doing a lot of thinking about why I started this project in the first place. To sum it up in one word, it has always been about perspective. Through space travel or satellites or simply bringing ourselves to a more elevated viewpoint, we can discover new ways to see our world like never before. I think that exercise can be healthy, it can be challenging, and ultimately, it can be beautiful. For me, it has been such an amazing adventure to work on this project and this book and I can't wait to see where it will take us next. Photo courtesy of NASA

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Venezuelan Food Shortages Force Many to Abandon Their Pets (19 photos)

In recent years, triple-digit inflation, massive food shortages, rising crime rates, and failing public services in Venezuela have forced many families into difficult decisions. The lack of available and affordable food has led to an increasing number of pets being dropped off at shelters, or simply abandoned in the streets. The Associated Press reports that “Pet owners say the price of dog food has more than doubled in recent months to $2 a pound, more than a day's pay for those earning the minimum wage.” Reuters photographer Carlos Garcia Rawlins and AP photographer Fernando Llano recently documented the growing number of abandoned dogs and cats in Venezuela's parks, shelters, and private clinics.

Sonrisa is pictured at the Famproa dog shelter in Los Teques, Venezuela, on August 16, 2016. "Sonrisa (smile), was given that name, because when someone approached her, she was frightened as if she were being beaten, but showing her teeth as if were smiling," said Maria Silva who takes care of dogs at the shelter. Sonrisa died the following week after the photo was taken. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins / Reuters)

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Green way by Fabio Antenore

Green way by Fabio Antenore

For more of my Works, Prints, Workshops ore personal Coaching follow me on: FACEBOOK HOMEPAGE

Fabio Antenore: Photos

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Abandoned by Raed Ammari

Abandoned by Raed Ammari

Raed Ammari: Photos

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Breakout by Michael Bollino

Breakout by Michael Bollino

Atmosphere was the name of the game during my recent trip to the Canadian Rockies. Rain, fog, clouds, wind all accompanied me on the day I entered the park. Awful conditions for the tourists yearning for mountain views but incredibly exciting for any photographers driving the Icefields Parkway that day. As hoped, the afternoon brought a stop to the rain as well as a breaking in the clouds obscuring the high peaks. This image is from the first series I shot during the trip. I've added a handful more to my New Releases gallery on my website if anyone feels like clicking over.

Michael Bollino: Photos

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Forces of Mountains by Adnan Bubalo

Forces of Mountains by Adnan Bubalo

The Matterhorn is a mountain of the Alps, straddling the main watershed and border between Switzerland and Italy. It is a huge and near-symmetrical pyramidal peak in the Monte Rosa area of the Pennine Alps, whose summit is 4,478 metres (14,692 ft) high, making it one of the highest summits in the Alps and Europe. It is estimated that over 500 alpinists have died on the Matterhorn since the first climb in 1865, making it one of the deadliest peaks in the world From my last expedition to Alps

Adnan Bubalo: Photos

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At the end of the day... by Marcel Bressers

At the end of the day... by Marcel Bressers

When I was making my way back at the end of the day, I suddenly discovered him standing there in the last light of day. So I raised y camera and took the shot. Enjoy!

Marcel Bressers: Photos

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Aline by Manfred Karisch

Aline by Manfred Karisch

Manfred Karisch: Photos

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Montreal Is About To Kill A Lot Of Dogs, Based On Quack Science
A dog registered as a boxer has killed a woman in Montreal, so the mayor is calling for a ban on pit bulls. This would be amusing, if it weren't so predictable and depressing: in few areas of public policy do you encounter thinking this routinely deranged. And it all starts with contempt for science.

Consider the National Post's Barbara Kay, almost certainly Canada's most prominent enemy of this ill-defined category of dog: the "pit bull." Kay is one of the saner voices on her side of the debate, and I sense she genuinely believes that she is acting on behalf of dog bite victims. For years she has written screeds calling for the ban of these dogs, based on what she considers solid scientific evidence. It would help, however, if she actually knew what a scientist was, and how they can be identified in the wild. I've never dealt with a journalist so distressingly lax when it comes to vetting her sources: she does not so much cherry-pick experts as pick diseased cherries and pronounce them epidemiologists.

In particular, Barbara Kay relies upon two crusaders who stress that they were personally bitten by pit bulls. I have written before about Merritt Clifton, the alleged statistician she describes as "her primary source." I addressed his claim that he had "more than a hundred peer-reviewed publications." I found only one -- unrelated to pit bulls -- in a marginal Asian journal. Since then an immaculately researched book has emerged -- Pit Bull: the Battle Over an American Icon (Knopf) -- and the author, Bronwen Dickey, is a more intrepid detective than I am: she managed to find two. Both in this same comically obscure journal. "In one of them, he cites his own newsletter twelve times. The rest of the citations came mainly from Web sites, news reports, and press releases." Dickey is clear on Clifton's credibility as a scientist: he "possesses no relevant credentials."

The woman Barbara Kay describes as her "other primary source" is Colleen Lynn. Here, Bronwen Dickey's revelations are priceless: "Before her bite injury, Lynn maintained a fortune-telling Web site called DivineLady.com, on which she referred to herself as 'Divine Lady, Beholder of the Soul.' In 2011, she self-published the third edition of Divine Lady's Guide to the Runes."

And the Divine Lady now runs DogsBite -- a sober, professional looking website, as long as you don't click on the links to drooling hate groups -- which credulous journalists consider a primary source for scientific information about pit bulls. Bronwen Dickey reminds us: "Lynn has no professional credentials in statistics, epidemiology, or animal behaviour; neither do the sources she relies upon most frequently."

These are the experts, peddled by Barbara Kay, who are informing Mayor Denis Coderre's decision to introduce a breed ban. Their favoured legislation is strongly rejected by every expert organization on the continent, including the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association, the American Veterinary Medical Association, the American Bar Association, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists.

When it comes to Breed Specific Legislation, it is not a question of two worthy opinions to be carefully considered and weighed against each other. It is a matter of science versus the worst kind of quackery: rune-throwing fortune tellers, wildly unqualified statisticians, and a posse of foul-mouthed trolls. There is no argument here, any more than there is in the sorry vaccine debate: it's simply knowledge versus willful, howling ignorance.

Barbara Kay's third vaunted source -- her "bible" -- is a book by Alexandra Semyonova, a former welfare inspector for the Dutch SPCA. Despite having spent time at good schools -- Johns Hopkins and University College London -- Semyonova likes to talk about "science whores": these are trained scientists with peer-reviewed publications, who come to radically different conclusions from hers, and therefore must be in it for the money.

I read Kay's bible after some urging. Semyonova's book is called The 100 Silliest Things People Say About Dogs. Which doesn't have quite the same ring to it as "The Old Testament." Still, it's not a bad book. Sure, she cites Merritt Clifton, so her statistics can be safely ignored, but it's not a dreadful book, really, until you come to the end -- the section entitled: "Myth 99: Scientists know what they are talking about because they study animals in an objective way."

Here the counterfactual statements are truly special. "The scientists who have studied dogs have done it either in highly unnatural circumstances (the lab), or they've only watched the dogs for short intervals." If you believe this silliness, I suggest you look up Dr. Ian Dunbar, a scientist with stellar academic qualifications -- a veterinary degree, a doctorate in animal behaviour from Berkeley, a Special Honours degree in Physiology and Biochemistry -- who has become famous for training dogs through decades of experience in the field. (He oppose BSL, of course, calling it "frankly stupid".)

I urge you to read "Myth 99" in its ridiculous entirety. Semyonova writes: "We now know that science often attracts people who have various, more or less serious, autism related disorders, perhaps in particular Asperger's syndrome." She laments science's "obsession with measurement and quantification." She suggests it might be a result of autism.

In short: rigorous science is overrated. Perhaps a kind of illness.

Barbara Kay seems to have come to her own self-serving conclusion: rigorous science reporting is overrated. I read her quirky bible, but despite my insistence, she has declined to read Bronwen Dickey's book, an exhaustive and likely definitive study representing seven years of research. Which didn't prevent Kay from tweeting this bit of non-libel, based on her profound insight into a book she hasn't read: "Why does @BronwenDickey hate kids?"

Let's take a look at what happened in Ontario when those evil "science whores" failed to prevent Breed Specific Legislation in 2005. For a short time it looked good: "A total of 486 bites were recorded in 2005. That number fell generally in the six years following, to 379 in 2010." And then -- when pit bulls were finally getting thin on the ground -- the numbers began to rise: "Toronto's reported dog bites have been rising since 2012, and in 2013 and 2014 reached their highest levels this century."

How could this be? Simple: other dogs stepped in to fill the gap. Irresponsible owners remained irresponsible -- since the laws did not apply to them, simply to maligned breeds -- and their dogs continued to bite. In 2014, pit bulls didn't even make the top ten list; the top biter in Ontario was the German Shepherd (a perennial), followed distantly by the Labrador retriever. Of course, had the wise rulers of Ontario listened to the science whores, they would have known to expect this: Breed Specific Legislation has been a disaster worldwide. Not one respectable study supports breed bans.

Oh, and if you care about dogs at all: "By 2012, the Ontario Veterinary Medical Association estimated that the law had led to over 1,000 dogs and puppies in Ontario having been needlessly put down."

Perhaps you don't care about dogs, but you value fiscal responsibility? Ontario's worthless Breed Specific Legislation -- while killing dogs, and doing nothing to make humans safer -- has certainly cost a whole lot of money. The precise figure hasn't been released, despite numerous requests, but we can infer how much from a study of Prince George County, Maryland (whose BSL costs are considered on the low side, relatively speaking): "The average cost to seize, detain, test, and euthanize a single pit bull was $68,000. In the fiscal year of 2001-2002, the total cost of pit bull confiscations was $560,000." Needless to say, this half million dollars purchased precisely zilch: "Studies proved that the community had no measurable safety benefit from the ban, and lost out on thousands of dollars from cancelled dog shows, tourism, and consistent 'pit bull' report calls from concerned citizens."

You'd think that Barbara Kay, a political conservative, would have strong ideas about fiscal restraint. But no, saving money has the unbearable consequence of saving pit bulls from the needle. Which is the only reason I can imagine Ms. Kay so greatly favours the failed Ontario legislation over the much less expensive program introduced in Alberta, which happens to actually work.

You see, Mayor Coderre need not look south of the border for relevant expertise here. By coincidence, the most lauded urban experiment in the containment of dog bites -- studied across the world -- is the Calgary Model. It's a remarkable success, and it's much cheaper than Breed Specific Legislation. The downside? It's a lot of work, and -- this really hurts -- it requires humans to be responsible. Calgary's bylaws governing dog ownership, described in depth here, are some of the strictest you'll encounter: yes, leashes are mandatory, as are licences. The legislation happens to be breed neutral, meaning that if your German Shepherd or your Dalmatian bites someone, you won't be off the hook. The program stresses education -- as opposed to BSL, whose fertilizer is ignorance -- which means even more in the way of human responsibility. So, it's a bit onerous. On the plus side it saves money, dogs, and humans.

Mayor Coderre has a genuine opportunity here: he could set an example, internationally, by introducing this groundbreaking legislation to a city twice the size of Calgary. This is personal: I lived in Montreal off and on for years -- one of my favorite cities -- and it would be thrilling to see it celebrated for a major contribution to the history of animal welfare.

The Calgary Model is not perfect, of course; nothing involving dogs and humans ever is. It requires constant vigilance and enforcement, and these have waned somewhat in recent years -- in 2011, for instance, Calgary experienced a distressing uptick in biting incidents. (Although not that distressing: the city retained "the lowest bite-per-population ratio in North America.") When the legislation is properly enforced, however, the results are peerless: Calgary "saw a five-fold reduction over 20 years -- from 10 bites per 10,000 people in 1986 to two in 2006."

Pardon my obsession with measurement and quantification. It's an illness I share with rational people who care about dog-bite victims.

NOTE: regarding the boxer I refer to at the top -- to be honest, we have no idea what kind of dog killed Christiane Vadnais. It was identified as a pit bull by the press, who are always quick to jump to this headline-friendly conclusion; then we discovered that it was registered as a boxer. Even this could be wrong; until we have DNA tests, we're simply throwing runes. All sorts of mixes can look like pit bulls. Alanna Devine, SPCA Montreal's director of animal advocacy, has the right approach: "The information that I think is pertinent here is that the dog was unsterilized, the dog was named Lucifer, and the dog had previously been involved in an attack against a human." In short, the owner would have been properly dealt with under the Calgary Model, and this tragedy would likely have been averted.

-- 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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A wall of trees across the Sahara is cool but we don't need it
The African Union is planning an 8000 kilometre stretch of trees across the entire continent, but the Great Green Wall isn't the best way to halt desertification
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Saving Africa's elephants isn't just a 'white man's job'

Kenyan conservationist Paula Kahumbu leads a new generation of Africans who are taking control of their environmental future

In the cool and serene area of Karen, near Nairobi, in the offices of the conservation organisation she has built, Paula Kahumbu eats chicken and rice and talks about a revolution.

The results of the wars we in conservation fight and win are not instant. They will be felt by generations to come

Continue reading...
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Never mind the pandas. What about the endangered geometric tortoise? | Jules Howard
Every year a list of the world's most endangered species is published. It's vital that the media looks beyond the great apes and fluffy bears

Look carefully at the most uppermost branches upon the great family tree of life on Earth, and near the top you will see a tiny twig labelled “panda”. It is re-growing. Slowly, it is getting sturdier.

Pandas are doing better than they were. In fact, this week, they have been officially downgraded in their conservation status from “endangered” to “vulnerable”, in the International Union for Conservation of Nature's latest “red list” update. The IUCN's annual announcement details the survival fortunes of every leaf upon life's great tree. It is nature's version of the FTSE 100, turned on its head.

Where was coverage of the nubian flapshell turtle?

Continue reading...
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Montreal Is About To Kill A Lot Of Dogs, Based On Quack Science
A dog registered as a boxer has killed a woman in Montreal, so the mayor is calling for a ban on pit bulls. This would be amusing, if it weren't so predictable and depressing: in few areas of public policy do you encounter thinking this routinely deranged. And it all starts with contempt for science.

Consider the National Post's Barbara Kay, almost certainly Canada's most prominent enemy of this ill-defined category of dog: the "pit bull." Kay is one of the saner voices on her side of the debate, and I sense she genuinely believes that she is acting on behalf of dog bite victims. For years she has written screeds calling for the ban of these dogs, based on what she considers solid scientific evidence. It would help, however, if she actually knew what a scientist was, and how they can be identified in the wild. I've never dealt with a journalist so distressingly lax when it comes to vetting her sources: she does not so much cherry-pick experts as pick diseased cherries and pronounce them epidemiologists.

In particular, Barbara Kay relies upon two crusaders who stress that they were personally bitten by pit bulls. I have written before about Merritt Clifton, the alleged statistician she describes as "her primary source." I addressed his claim that he had "more than a hundred peer-reviewed publications." I found only one -- unrelated to pit bulls -- in a marginal Asian journal. Since then an immaculately researched book has emerged -- Pit Bull: the Battle Over an American Icon (Knopf) -- and the author, Bronwen Dickey, is a more intrepid detective than I am: she managed to find two. Both in this same comically obscure journal. "In one of them, he cites his own newsletter twelve times. The rest of the citations came mainly from Web sites, news reports, and press releases." Dickey is clear on Clifton's credibility as a scientist: he "possesses no relevant credentials."

The woman Barbara Kay describes as her "other primary source" is Colleen Lynn. Here, Bronwen Dickey's revelations are priceless: "Before her bite injury, Lynn maintained a fortune-telling Web site called DivineLady.com, on which she referred to herself as 'Divine Lady, Beholder of the Soul.' In 2011, she self-published the third edition of Divine Lady's Guide to the Runes."

And the Divine Lady now runs DogsBite -- a sober, professional looking website, as long as you don't click on the links to drooling hate groups -- which credulous journalists consider a primary source for scientific information about pit bulls. Bronwen Dickey reminds us: "Lynn has no professional credentials in statistics, epidemiology, or animal behaviour; neither do the sources she relies upon most frequently."

These are the experts, peddled by Barbara Kay, who are informing Mayor Denis Coderre's decision to introduce a breed ban. Their favoured legislation is strongly rejected by every expert organization on the continent, including the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association, the American Veterinary Medical Association, the American Bar Association, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists.

When it comes to Breed Specific Legislation, it is not a question of two worthy opinions to be carefully considered and weighed against each other. It is a matter of science versus the worst kind of quackery: rune-throwing fortune tellers, wildly unqualified statisticians, and a posse of foul-mouthed trolls. There is no argument here, any more than there is in the sorry vaccine debate: it's simply knowledge versus willful, howling ignorance.

Barbara Kay's third vaunted source -- her "bible" -- is a book by Alexandra Semyonova, a former welfare inspector for the Dutch SPCA. Despite having spent time at good schools -- Johns Hopkins and University College London -- Semyonova likes to talk about "science whores": these are trained scientists with peer-reviewed publications, who come to radically different conclusions from hers, and therefore must be in it for the money.

I read Kay's bible after some urging. Semyonova's book is called The 100 Silliest Things People Say About Dogs. Which doesn't have quite the same ring to it as "The Old Testament." Still, it's not a bad book. Sure, she cites Merritt Clifton, so her statistics can be safely ignored, but it's not a dreadful book, really, until you come to the end -- the section entitled: "Myth 99: Scientists know what they are talking about because they study animals in an objective way."

Here the counterfactual statements are truly special. "The scientists who have studied dogs have done it either in highly unnatural circumstances (the lab), or they've only watched the dogs for short intervals." If you believe this silliness, I suggest you look up Dr. Ian Dunbar, a scientist with stellar academic qualifications -- a veterinary degree, a doctorate in animal behaviour from Berkeley, a Special Honours degree in Physiology and Biochemistry -- who has become famous for training dogs through decades of experience in the field. (He oppose BSL, of course, calling it "frankly stupid".)

I urge you to read "Myth 99" in its ridiculous entirety. Semyonova writes: "We now know that science often attracts people who have various, more or less serious, autism related disorders, perhaps in particular Asperger's syndrome." She laments science's "obsession with measurement and quantification." She suggests it might be a result of autism.

In short: rigorous science is overrated. Perhaps a kind of illness.

Barbara Kay seems to have come to her own self-serving conclusion: rigorous science reporting is overrated. I read her quirky bible, but despite my insistence, she has declined to read Bronwen Dickey's book, an exhaustive and likely definitive study representing seven years of research. Which didn't prevent Kay from tweeting this bit of non-libel, based on her profound insight into a book she hasn't read: "Why does @BronwenDickey hate kids?"

Let's take a look at what happened in Ontario when those evil "science whores" failed to prevent Breed Specific Legislation in 2005. For a short time it looked good: "A total of 486 bites were recorded in 2005. That number fell generally in the six years following, to 379 in 2010." And then -- when pit bulls were finally getting thin on the ground -- the numbers began to rise: "Toronto's reported dog bites have been rising since 2012, and in 2013 and 2014 reached their highest levels this century."

How could this be? Simple: other dogs stepped in to fill the gap. Irresponsible owners remained irresponsible -- since the laws did not apply to them, simply to maligned breeds -- and their dogs continued to bite. In 2014, pit bulls didn't even make the top ten list; the top biter in Ontario was the German Shepherd (a perennial), followed distantly by the Labrador retriever. Of course, had the wise rulers of Ontario listened to the science whores, they would have known to expect this: Breed Specific Legislation has been a disaster worldwide. Not one respectable study supports breed bans.

Oh, and if you care about dogs at all: "By 2012, the Ontario Veterinary Medical Association estimated that the law had led to over 1,000 dogs and puppies in Ontario having been needlessly put down."

Perhaps you don't care about dogs, but you value fiscal responsibility? Ontario's worthless Breed Specific Legislation -- while killing dogs, and doing nothing to make humans safer -- has certainly cost a whole lot of money. The precise figure hasn't been released, despite numerous requests, but we can infer how much from a study of Prince George County, Maryland (whose BSL costs are considered on the low side, relatively speaking): "The average cost to seize, detain, test, and euthanize a single pit bull was $68,000. In the fiscal year of 2001-2002, the total cost of pit bull confiscations was $560,000." Needless to say, this half million dollars purchased precisely zilch: "Studies proved that the community had no measurable safety benefit from the ban, and lost out on thousands of dollars from cancelled dog shows, tourism, and consistent 'pit bull' report calls from concerned citizens."

You'd think that Barbara Kay, a political conservative, would have strong ideas about fiscal restraint. But no, saving money has the unbearable consequence of saving pit bulls from the needle. Which is the only reason I can imagine Ms. Kay so greatly favours the failed Ontario legislation over the much less expensive program introduced in Alberta, which happens to actually work.

You see, Mayor Coderre need not look south of the border for relevant expertise here. By coincidence, the most lauded urban experiment in the containment of dog bites -- studied across the world -- is the Calgary Model. It's a remarkable success, and it's much cheaper than Breed Specific Legislation. The downside? It's a lot of work, and -- this really hurts -- it requires humans to be responsible. Calgary's bylaws governing dog ownership, described in depth here, are some of the strictest you'll encounter: yes, leashes are mandatory, as are licences. The legislation happens to be breed neutral, meaning that if your German Shepherd or your Dalmatian bites someone, you won't be off the hook. The program stresses education -- as opposed to BSL, whose fertilizer is ignorance -- which means even more in the way of human responsibility. So, it's a bit onerous. On the plus side it saves money, dogs, and humans.

Mayor Coderre has a genuine opportunity here: he could set an example, internationally, by introducing this groundbreaking legislation to a city twice the size of Calgary. This is personal: I lived in Montreal off and on for years -- one of my favorite cities -- and it would be thrilling to see it celebrated for a major contribution to the history of animal welfare.

The Calgary Model is not perfect, of course; nothing involving dogs and humans ever is. It requires constant vigilance and enforcement, and these have waned somewhat in recent years -- in 2011, for instance, Calgary experienced a distressing uptick in biting incidents. (Although not that distressing: the city retained "the lowest bite-per-population ratio in North America.") When the legislation is properly enforced, however, the results are peerless: Calgary "saw a five-fold reduction over 20 years -- from 10 bites per 10,000 people in 1986 to two in 2006."

Pardon my obsession with measurement and quantification. It's an illness I share with rational people who care about dog-bite victims.

NOTE: regarding the boxer I refer to at the top -- to be honest, we have no idea what kind of dog killed Christiane Vadnais. It was identified as a pit bull by the press, who are always quick to jump to this headline-friendly conclusion; then we discovered that it was registered as a boxer. Even this could be wrong; until we have DNA tests, we're simply throwing runes. All sorts of mixes can look like pit bulls. Alanna Devine, SPCA Montreal's director of animal advocacy, has the right approach: "The information that I think is pertinent here is that the dog was unsterilized, the dog was named Lucifer, and the dog had previously been involved in an attack against a human." In short, the owner would have been properly dealt with under the Calgary Model, and this tragedy would likely have been averted.

-- 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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Facebook And Mortality: Why Your Incessant Joy Gives Me The Blues

Has the social media site been good for our mental health or not? The evidence isn't straightforward, researchers say, despite lots of study. How Facebook makes you feel may depend on how you use it.

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Can School Integration Make a Comeback?

In 1954, Brown v. Board of Education declared that separate schools for black students and white students should be dismantled with “all deliberate speed.” However, in recent decades, schools have re-segregated to the levels they were just after Brown. In this video, Atlantic education editor Alia Wong speaks to the U.S. Secretary of Education John King, Jr. about his new plan to integrate schools. King's policy changes will expand a system known as “school choice” that permits students to go to schools outside their neighborhoods and theoretically allows parents to voluntarily integrate schools. But, D.C. parent Natalie Hopkinson argues that schools will continue to re-segregate if the federal government does not intervene more forcefully. “As long as we rely on [parental] choice, we will continue to have the same result,” she says. “White parents will not send their kids to schools unless they are already white.”

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Deer in Woods III

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Typo made Air Asia X flight land at Melbourne instead of Malaysia

Co-ords cockup causes confusion but not calamity

Finger trouble with onboard navigation systems led to an Air Asia flight making a two-hour internal hop in Australia before its scheduled journey to Malaysia.…

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AmirsCamera posted a photo:

London. July 2016.

Instagram: @amirscamera

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500,000 Cars and National Drive Electric Week
A few years ago, it would have been a pipe dream to imagine that there would be 500,000 plug-in cars on the streets of the United States--and more than a million worldwide. But we are now poised to cross this big threshold in the coming week. (If you are a bean-counter like me, you can track it yourself with the counter on our website.)

It's worth pausing a moment in the exciting run-up to National Drive Electric Week, to consider where we have come from and where we are trying to go. There is something about EVs that gets people fired up like nothing else. Partly, it's just that Americans care a lot about what they drive. But at the same time, people have known for decades that the petroleum economy is not sustainable on an environmental, economic or national security level--and have sought alternatives. Inventors have developed various electric cars since the mid-1800s. In the early 1900s, they outnumbered gasoline cars, but were limited by existing battery technology and were overtaken by the internal combustion engine with the advent of the Ford Model T.

The modern era of widely available, moderately priced plug-in cars began in 2010 with the launch of the Nissan LEAF® and Chevrolet Volt and has expanded to where we find ourselves today, with more than two dozen available models and over 12,000 sold every month and steadily increasing. All indicators suggest that the next half-million will come a lot more quickly, particularly once the Chevrolet Bolt, Tesla Model 3 and other eagerly awaited, moderately priced 200-mile range vehicles hit the market.

So National Drive Electric Week, the annual celebration of the plug-in car, comes at an auspicious moment this year. We project that we will cross the 500,000 vehicles sold milestone sometime during September 10-18. And we expect to have at least 4,000 of those vehicles at the events! This year will be the largest in its six-year history, with more than 220 events in nearly every state and Canadian province.

Plug In America, Sierra Club, and the Electric Auto Association serve as the national team providing support to the events throughout the country. We are pleased to partner with many other organizations and individuals working to bring National Drive Electric Week to communities near you. Nissan LEAF is the national automotive sponsor, and supporters include silver sponsor CalETC, bronze sponsor Clipper Creek, media sponsor PlugShare and EVgo.

On the events page, you can find National Drive Electric Week events in your community. So please come out, have some fun, test drive the newest cars, and maybe YOU'LL be the one buying that 500,000th car!

-- 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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Animal sound symphony tells us new things about our world
Brilliant sound and vivid spectrographs combine to create a hypnotic experience of the natural world and hint at a very different future for humans and animals
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Ferdinand Hayden Scientist of the DayFerdinand Vandeveer...

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Ferdinand Hayden Scientist of the Day

Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden, an American geologist, was born Sep. 7, 1829.

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Flash Physics: Imaging single ions, UK's merging 'supercouncil', OMEGA laser sets fusion record
Today's selection of need-to-know updates from the world of physics

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A Crude Heroine: Nadiya Savchenko's Assault on Ukraine's Elite

After her release from a Russia prison, Ukrainian helicopter pilot Nadiya Savchenko was celebrated as a hero. Now, though, she is making powerful enemies with her coarse verbal attacks against the country's political elite.
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Cumulonimbus over Africa, as seen from ISS

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At IFA 2016, style trumped specs

Another of the world's grand tech exhibitions is now in the books, with Berlin hosting what might have been its most varied and intriguing IFA in years. Like other shows, this one had its oddities, such as LG's fridge running Windows 10, but what stood out to me was the practicality and immediate emotional appeal of many of the new products on show. With modern technology now mainstream and reaching a plateau of good-enough hardware, companies are spending less time chasing and explaining new specs and more of their effort on humanizing and styling out their latest gear.

This is not a criticism. I think there's a great deal of substance in style. It is the substance of design.

Lenovo was the consensus winner of IFA 2016 with its...

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Oceana's first North Sea expedition - in pictures

The ocean conservation society last week completed its first-ever expedition to document the richness of habitats and threats to marine life in waters off the Netherlands, UK, Norway and Denmark. The results from the two-month, at-sea study will be used to strengthen marine protection in the region

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https://t.co/pBbHKVOD4w Do not agree with taking off lists encourages hunting#marineconservarion #CITES #whalewatching
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Sunset Along the South Bank

adrians_art posted a photo:

The south bank of the river Thames in London, England taken at sunset

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Social Science Researchers Explore 'Unethical Amnesia'

Researchers find that one reason some people cheat over and over again is because we all tend to suffer from "unethical amnesia" — our minds are prone to forgetting the bad stuff we've done.

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Super-resolution microscope builds 3-D images by mapping negative space

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Scientists have demonstrated a method for making 3-D images of structures in biological material under natural conditions at a much higher resolution than other existing methods. The method may help shed light on how cells communicate with one another and provide important insights for engineers working to develop artificial organs such as skin or heart tissue.

Image credit: Jenna Luecke, UT Austin

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Light scattered by gold nanorods

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In this image, gold nanorods, embedded in a cell-populated collagen gel, scatter light as viewed under a darkfield microscope. The collective excitation of electrons in the conduction band of gold nanoparticles arising from resonance with incident-visible radiation is referred to as localized surface plasmon resonance. This excitation leads to resonant Rayleigh light scattering. Because of this strong scattering, individual nanoparticles, much smaller than the wavelength of light, can be observed using an optical microscope. There has been considerable interest in resonant Rayleigh scattering from gold and silver nanoparticles for biological and chemical analysis. In this application, a fibroblast-seeded collagen gel, an in vitro material system often used to model wound healing, is embedded with nanoparticles. The pattern of scattered light will be tracked using computerized pattern matching and image correlation techniques to measure the deformation that occurs as the collagen gel contracts, in a simulation of the formation of scar tissue. It is hoped that these small scale measurements will illustrate local heterogeneity in the mechanical response of the material.

Image credit: The USC Nanocenter

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lightslondon1

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tower of lights123

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The Royal Scam-o-rama

Lord Eglinton posted a photo:

The sun goes down on a neon aeon. Pre-lunar Londinivm from Greenwhich park.

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Believed In Ever Since

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Short-tailed ichneum

Short-tailed ichneumon wasp (Ophion sp.) collected in Forillon National Park, Quebec, Canada, and photographed at the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics (sample ID: BIOUG11178-E05; specimen record: http://www.boldsystems.org/index.php/Public_RecordView?processid=CNFNQ737-14)

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Extinction and the Integrated Liberal Arts
Although you may never have heard of Benjamin, I'm willing to bet that his story will interest you. He lived a tough and lonely life in Australia. His death, 80 years ago today on September 7, 1936, came after years of abuse. On his last day he suffered from dehydration during an unseasonably warm spell and he died during the night having been kept from his bed due to the neglect of those charged with his care. When he died in Hobart's Beaumaris Zoo the world lost more than just Benjamin, though, because Benjamin was the last of his kind. Benjamin was a thylacine, a Tasmanian tiger, but not just any thylacine. No, Benjamin was, by all accounts, the very last thylacine. When he died 80 years ago, the 25 million-year-long thylacine lineage went extinct.

Benjamin left behind a small trace of himself, however. Three years before Benjamin's death Australian naturalist David Fleay filmed him in his small, stark enclosure. The 45 second clip gives you a sense of Benjamin and his meagre existence.

What you can't see is what happened after the film ends. The opened mouthed gape or yawn Benjamin displays, it turns out, was characteristic of thylacine behavior when it felt threatened. The tripod with a camera on it with Fleay behind covered by a curtain triggered fear in Benjamin and he bit Fleay on the butt - twice.

There's no doubt that we are in the midst of a massive extinction event with many species going extinct every year. How many? It's impossible to know, partly because we don't know how many species actually exist. But what we do know is that since humans came on the scene extinctions have increased significantly and today the rate is likely between 1,000 and 10,000 times the natural extinction rate. That means that we are probably losing at least 200 species and perhaps as many as 100,000 species each year.

It's difficult for many of us to fully process what that means, partly because the numbers are so large and partly because we don't know much, if anything, about most of the species that are being lost. But we know Benjamin and our knowledge of him makes his loss more personal, perhaps moving some of us to act.

I hasten to point out that Benjamin was not alone in being the last of his kind to have been lost, lost not in obscurity but lost under our control as named individuals.

Celia, the last Pyrenean ibex, died on January 6, 2000 in the Spanish Pyrenees.
Incas, the last Carolina parakeet, died on February 21, 1918 in the Cincinnati Zoo.
Orange Band, the last dusky seaside sparrow, died on June 17, 1987 at Walt Disney Resort, Bay Lake, Florida.
Lonesome George, the last Pinta Island Tortoise, died on June 24, 2012 at the Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz Island in the Galapagos.
Martha, the last passenger pigeon, died on September 1, 1914 in the Cincinnati Zoo.

The extinction of a species that each of these deaths represent is just a drop more poignant to most of us because, as I said, we have personal knowledge of the individuals involved.

But even as we might grieve for these individuals and the species they represent, does it really matter that because of our collective actions the world is losing species at a dizzying rate? I believe it matters a great deal, for a host of reasons. I'll summarize just three such reasons.

Natural environments are composed of interrelated webs of interactions. As various species are removed via extinction, the integrity of the entire ecosystem is at risk conceivably leading to increased extinction or collapse of ecosystem functioning.
From a completely utilitarian perspective, it's worth remembering that every day we discover fascinating natural products, including medicines, that benefit humans. These opportunities disappear as species are lost.
We lose a bit of our humanity with every species that we drive into oblivion. We have a moral and spiritual obligation to consider those with whom we share the planet.

Species extinction is but one of many complex problems we face as a society. While telling people about the large number of species going extinct each year will rouse some to action and sharing information about Benjamin, Celia, Martha and the rest will stir others, action must be informed by knowledge. It is important to recognize that addressing the myriad problematic issues we face today requires us to think holistically. To develop a citizenry capable of solving wicked problems of this sort, educators have been making progress in transforming the way students are taught by looking beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries while, at the same time, understanding that different perspectives offer different insights and attempting to integrate those perspectives.

Biologists alone will not be able to slow the rate at which we are driving species into oblivion. Knowledge gained from climatologists, from natural resource managers and from physicists is needed. Fully understanding the importance species play in the world requires the expertise of sociologists, psychologists, drug developers, theologians, artists and humanists.

Increasingly educators are recognizing the criticality of the full stretch of the liberal arts and, even more than that, the importance of teaching students how to integrate the different insights that each discipline offers. Such a perspective can be very powerful and will likely lead to unexpected and positive results.

-- 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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Flycatcher genome sheds light on causes of mutations
A research team has determined the complete genetic code of 11 members of a flycatcher pedigree. Doing this, they have for the first time been able to estimate the rate of new mutations in birds. When they combined the new results with mutation rate estimates from other organisms, a clear pattern emerged: The more common a species is, the lower its mutation rate.
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European earthworms decrease species diversity in North America
European earthworms invading the forests of North America are responsible for a decline in species diversity in the forest understory. Scientists have now been able to demonstrate this general pattern for the first time. In invaded forests, the vegetation on the forest floor has changed dramatically: The species diversity of native plants is declining, yet the amount of non-native (exotic) plants is increasing, and so is the amount of grasses.
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Global warming data not enough to predict animal extinction, lizard study finds
Current models used to predict the survival of species in a warming world might be off target because they ignore the spatial distribution of shade, report scientists.
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Daily Dozen — Photos

Daily Dozen — Photos -- National Geographic Your Shot
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Daily Dozen — Photos

Daily Dozen — Photos -- National Geographic Your Shot
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FAN HO 08AUG14 NS PH

FAN HO 08AUG14 NS PHOTO2 01-Fan Ho-A day is done.jpg
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FAN HO 08AUG14 NS PH

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Waterfalls in Phnom

Waterfalls in Phnom Kulen National Park, Cambodia (© f9photos/Shutterstock) 2016-09-06 [www.bing.com/search]
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Daily Design Inspira

Daily Design Inspiration | Abduzeedo
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Daily Design Inspira

Daily Design Inspiration | Abduzeedo
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Best in Show: 2011t

Best in Show: 2011today | Frieze
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New CERN LHC Experiments --"Predict a Boson Beyond the Higgs That Could Unlock Clues to Existence of Dark Matter"

Two separate experiments at the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, on the French-Swiss border, appear to confirm the existence of a subatomic particle, the Madala boson, that for the first time could shed light on one of the great mysteries of the universe - dark matter.

The Madala boson follows the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 "but the particles differ remarkably," said the team leader Bruce Mellado of South Africa's Witwatersrand University School of Physics. The Madala boson is heavier and disintegrates into the Higgs boson. "The Higgs boson in the Standard Model of physics is not able to explain several things, such as dark matter," Mellado added.

"The Madala boson is important for our understanding of the universe. Through this we can communicate with dark matter - we don't have an object that can do that. This could be the first," said Mellado. The boson appears to interact with energy that cannot be explained.

Mellado will summarize the reappearance of these features in the features in the proton-proton collision data collected during Run I by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the Large Hadron Collider that were used to formulate the Madala hypothesis, and its implications.

These features in the data were interpreted as being due to the existence of a new scalar, the Madala boson, with a mass around 270 GeV. A conservative statistical combination yielded a three sigma effect. The ATLAS and CMS collaboration have just released new data at the international conference ICHEP2016.

In particular, Mellado will discuss a prediction, namely of the production of anomalously large 4 W bosons, leading to a striking and unequivocal signature.

Dark matter is the new frontier in physics, Mellado said, and scientists were racing to work out what it is. The Chinese and Japanese had declared intentions of building colliders that could be used to search for the identity of dark matter and dark energy. A team of 35 University of the Witwatersrand scientists today hosts a series of seminars about the Madala boson (Zulu for "old"), followed by other seminars in the US, UK, China and India.

The Daily Galaxy via wits.ac.za

Image credit: CERN

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Space history

europeanspaceagency posted a photo:

This week one year ago, ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen (left) spent 10 days in space on his ‘iriss' mission to the International Space Station. He was launched on 2 September 2015 in a Soyuz spacecraft with cosmonaut commander Sergei Volkov (right) and returned in a different Soyuz with commander Gennadi Padalka. Sergei stayed on to complete his third six-month stay on the Space Station.

Andreas and Sergei unveiled a bust of Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space, exactly a year after their own launch. The event commemorated Gagarin's visit to Denmark 54 years ago during his tour of Europe after his landmark orbit of Earth on 12 April 1961.

The bust is at the Danish Technical University near Copenhagen, Denmark. The university participated in a number of experiments on the International Space Station, including Andreas imaging a newly discovered weather phenomenon.

Credit: DTUM. Schlosser

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China Speeding Efforts to Build a Manned Oceanic “Space Station”

China is accelerating efforts to design and build a manned deep-sea platform to help it hunt for minerals in the South China Sea, one that may also serve a military purpose in the disputed waters, joining an exclusive club of countries that are capable of achieving human access to the deep sea. The other countries are the United States, Russia, France and Japan. The achievement will allow China to explore more than 99.8% of the ocean floor, Liu Cigui, director China's State Oceanic Administration (SOA), told the media.

China is accelerating efforts to design and build an oceanic “space station” would be located as much as 3,000 meters (9,800 feet) below the surface of the South China Sea, according to a recent Science Ministry presentation viewed by Bloomberg.

The project was mentioned in China's current five-year economic plan released in March and ranked number two on a list of the top 100 science and technology priorities.

"Having this kind of long-term inhabited station has not been attempted this deep, but it is certainly possible," said Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. "Manned submersibles have gone to those depths for almost 50 years. The challenge is operating it for months at a time."

The U.S. Energy Information Administration says the South China Sea has proved and probable reserves of about 11 billion barrels of oil and 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. China Cnooc chairman estimated the South China Sea holds around 125 billion barrels of oil and 500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Modern nuclear attack submarines like the American Seawolf class are estimated to have a test depth of 490 m (1,600 ft), which would imply a collapse depth of 730 m (2,400 ft). Test depth is the maximum depth at which a submarine is permitted to operate under normal peacetime circumstances, and is tested during sea trials.

In June 2012, China's manned submersible Jiaolong successfully completed its deepest test dive, to 7,020 meters in the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean.

Researchers at Shanghai Ocean University have also developed a submersible movable laboratory capable of operating at more than 13,000 feet underwater.

Deepsea challenger has gone to the bottom of the ocean On March 26, 2012, James Cameron reached the bottom of the Challenger Deep, the deepest part of the Mariana Trench. The maximum depth recorded during this record-setting dive was 10,908 meters (35,787 ft).

Nearly 50% of the world's oceans are deeper than 4 kilometers, which provides vast areas for concealment and storage. Concealment provided by the sea also provides the opportunity to quickly engage remote assets that may have been dormant and undetected for long periods of time, while its vastness allows simultaneous operation across great distances.

The Daily Galaxy via Bloomberg, Nextbigfuture, China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation, DARPA

Rocky Planet with a 3-Day Orbit --"Only 21 Light-Years Away"

NASA's Virtual Planetary Laboratory --A New "Systems" Approach to the Search for Alien Life

"Our Early Solar System Harbored SuperEarths" (Weekend Feature)

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Early Earth Collided With a Mercury-Sized Planet --"Set the Stage for Carbon-Based Life"

Scientists are speculating that virtually all of Earth's life-giving carbon could have come from a collision about 4.4 billion years ago between Earth and an embryonic planet similar to Mercury, approximately 100 million years after Earth formed.

In a new study this week in Nature Geoscience, Rice petrologist Rajdeep Dasgupta and colleagues offer a new answer to a long-debated geological question: How did carbon-based life develop on Earth, given that most of the planet's carbon should have either boiled away in the planet's earliest days or become locked in Earth's core?

“The challenge is to explain the origin of the volatile elements like carbon that remain outside the core in the mantle portion of our planet,” said Dasgupta, who co-authored the study with lead author and Rice postdoctoral researcher Yuan Li, Rice research scientist Kyusei Tsuno and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute colleagues Brian Monteleone and Nobumichi Shimizu.

Dasgupta's lab specializes in recreating the high-pressure and high-temperature conditions that exist deep inside Earth and other rocky planets. His team squeezes rocks in hydraulic presses that can simulate conditions about 250 miles below Earth's surface or at the core-mantle boundary of smaller planets like Mercury.

“Even before this paper, we had published several studies that showed that even if carbon did not vaporize into space when the planet was largely molten, it would end up in the metallic core of our planet, because the iron-rich alloys there have a strong affinity for carbon,” Dasgupta said.

Earth's core, which is mostly iron, makes up about one-third of the planet's mass. Earth's silicate mantle accounts for the other two-thirds and extends more than 1,500 miles below Earth's surface. Earth's crust and atmosphere are so thin that they account for less than 1 percent of the planet's mass. The mantle, atmosphere and crust constantly exchange elements, including the volatile elements needed for life.

If Earth's initial allotment of carbon boiled away into space or got stuck in the core, where did the carbon in the mantle and biosphere come from?

“One popular idea has been that volatile elements like carbon, sulfur, nitrogen and hydrogen were added after Earth's core finished forming,” said Li, who is now a staff scientist at Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences. “Any of those elements that fell to Earth in meteorites and comets more than about 100 million years after the solar system formed could have avoided the intense heat of the magma ocean that covered Earth up to that point.

“The problem with that idea is that while it can account for the abundance of many of these elements, there are no known meteorites that would produce the ratio of volatile elements in the silicate portion of our planet,” Li said.

In late 2013, Dasgupta's team began thinking about unconventional ways to address the issue of volatiles and core composition, and they decided to conduct experiments to gauge how sulfur or silicon might alter the affinity of iron for carbon. The idea didn't come from Earth studies, but from some of Earth's planetary neighbors.

“We thought we definitely needed to break away from the conventional core composition of just iron and nickel and carbon,” Dasgupta recalled. “So we began exploring very sulfur-rich and silicon-rich alloys, in part because the core of Mars is thought to be sulfur-rich and the core of Mercury is thought to be relatively silicon-rich.

schematic of proto Earth's merger with a Mercury-like planetary embryo
A schematic depiction of proto Earth's merger with a potentially Mercury-like planetary embryo, a scenario supported by new high pressure-temperature experiments at Rice University.

Magma ocean processes could lead planetary embryos to develop silicon- or sulfur-rich metallic cores and carbon-rich outer layers. If Earth merged with such a planet early in its history, it could explain how Earth acquired its carbon and sulfur.

“It was a compositional spectrum that seemed relevant, if not for our own planet, then definitely in the scheme of all the terrestrial planetary bodies that we have in our solar system,” he said.

The experiments revealed that carbon could be excluded from the core — and relegated to the silicate mantle — if the iron alloys in the core were rich in either silicon or sulfur.

“The key data revealed how the partitioning of carbon between the metallic and silicate portions of terrestrial planets varies as a function of the variables like temperature, pressure and sulfur or silicon content,” Li said.

The team mapped out the relative concentrations of carbon that would arise under various levels of sulfur and silicon enrichment, and the researchers compared those concentrations to the known volatiles in Earth's silicate mantle.

“One scenario that explains the carbon-to-sulfur ratio and carbon abundance is that an embryonic planet like Mercury, which had already formed a silicon-rich core, collided with and was absorbed by Earth,” Dasgupta said. “Because it's a massive body, the dynamics could work in a way that the core of that planet would go directly to the core of our planet, and the carbon-rich mantle would mix with Earth's mantle.

“In this paper, we focused on carbon and sulfur,” he said. “Much more work will need to be done to reconcile all of the volatile elements, but at least in terms of the carbon-sulfur abundances and the carbon-sulfur ratio, we find this scenario could explain Earth's present carbon and sulfur budgets.”

The research was supported by NASA and the National Science Foundation.

The Daily Galaxy via Rice University

Rocky Planet with a 3-Day Orbit --"Only 21 Light-Years Away"

"The Behemoth" --Immense Cloud of Hydrogen Observed Bleeding From Alien Planet

Kepler Mission's "Top 20" --Identifies Best Earth-Like Candidates

Exo-Planet Discovered With Chemistry Vastly Different than Earth --A Surface of Graphite and Diamond - The Daily Galaxy --Great Discoveries Channel

Strange Alien Atmosphere of the "Diamond Planet"

NASA: Probabilty of Alien Life in the Milky Way Increasing Exponentially (Today's Most Popular) - The Daily Galaxy --Great Discoveries Channel

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Evidence of Planet 9 --"May Already Exist"

“Actually, it's quite possible that the planet has already been in some way imaged,” says Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institute. “That happened with Uranus, Neptune and Pluto — they were observed but not understood before they were actually detected. Who knows, proof of Planet X {or Planet 9} may already exist in some observatory archive.”

Scott Shepard's team has been se arching for proof of Planet 9 using the Dark Energy Camera on the 4-meter Blanco telescope at the Cerro Tollolo Inter-American Observatory in the southern Atacama region of Chile (below) . They have also collected data on distant solar system objects with the Japanese Hyper Surpime Camera on the 8-meter Subaru telescope in Hawaii. (National Optical Astronomical Observatory)

Shepard is considering an alternative theory that involves a Planet 9 exoplanet that had been been kicked out of another nearby solar system that formed in the general vicinity of ours. Such things are known to happen.

“If this turned out to be the case, then we'd know that there were other suns being formed nearby our sun,” Shepard said. “It would have to be a very dense solar environment, and that would also tell us a lot about the formation of our solar system.”

Object V774104 shown at the top of the page was discovered in late October, 2015, and is one of the most distant objects ever detected in the solar system. It appears to be about half the size of Pluto, but with an orbit two to three times wider than Pluto's. (Scott Sheppard, Chad Trujillo and Dave Tholen: Subaru Telescope)

Sheppard's team is conducting the deepest survey so far for objects beyond Neptune and the Kuiper Belt, a circumstellar disk that lies some 30 to 50 times as far as the Earth is from the sun. It is filled with dwarf planets asteroids, comets, and balls of frozen compounds — remnants of the earliest days of the evolution of the solar system. The Kuiper Belt is the region that includes Pluto, the now dwarf planet demoted with heated debate several years ago.

The team has observed nearly 10 percent of the sky using some of the largest and most advanced telescopes and cameras in the world. As they find and confirm these distant and faint objects, they analyze whether their discoveries fit into the larger theories about how interactions with a massive distant planet could have shaped the outer Solar System.

“Right now we are dealing with very low-number statistics, so we don't really understand what is happening in the outer Solar System,” Sheppard said. “Greater numbers of extreme trans-Neptunian objects must be found to fully determine the structure of our outer Solar System.”

He said that although astronomers believe there are thousands of these small objects, only about 15 have been positively identified. One discovered by Sheppard and Trujillo in 2014 — designated 2012 VP113 but nicknamed “Biden” — has the most distant known orbit in our solar system.

At the same time, Sheppard and Trujillo noticed that the handful of known extreme trans-Neptunian objects all clustered together and moved at similar orbital angles. These unusual dynamics lead the astronomers to propose that a substantial planet might be shepherding the smaller objects through its gravitational pull.

The search for Planet 9 is not the first to use the orbits of other bodies as a signpost to another planet. Indeed, Sheppard said that “we are now in a similar situation as in the mid-19th century when Alexis Bouvard noticed Uranus' orbital motion was peculiar, which eventually led to the discovery of Neptune.”

The other team most deeply involved with the Planet 9 hunt is led by Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin of the California Institute of Technology. They are the ones who made a big splash earlier this year with their predictions of a Planet 9, again based on the orbits of smaller objects.

In an email, we said that the newly detected object “fit perfectly into our Planet 9 hypothesis, so we remain pretty confident that the planet we predicted is indeed the right planet.”

Other groups searching the trans-Neptunian region for planets and information about the early solar system include the Canadian Outer Solar System Origins Survey and the international Dark Energy Survey.

Sheppard said that while the teams searching for Planet 9 are definitely in competition — a discovery would, after all, re-write the textbooks — they are also cooperating in terms of reporting back to each other if a region of the sky they study comes up with nothing to report. That way, he said, the teams won't duplicate efforts where there is no promise of reward.

While Sheppard's and Brown's teams have the advantage of access to more sophisticated instruments to work with, it is certainly possible that one of the others will make breakthroughs, and possibly THE breakthrough.

The Daily Galaxy via NASA and Marc Kaufmann

Young Solar System Observed Around a Nearby Star

"There Could be At Least Two Unknown Planets Hidden Well Beyond Pluto"

Enormous Volcanoes Detected on Pluto that Spew Ice, Not Lava --"Nothing Like This Has Been Seen in the Deep Outer Solar System" - The Daily Galaxy --Great Discoveries Channel

NASA's First Encounter With the 'Last Planet' --"A New Class of Worlds"

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Mystery Alien Signal from Hercules Constellation --"Was from a Russian Military Satellite" --Russian News Agency TASS

Mysterious alien signals from a star system 94 light years from Earth picked up by Russian scientists last year did not come from an advanced extraterrestrial civilization, but from an old Soviet military satellite, says Russian news agency TASS, much to the disappointment of astronomers and alien enthusiasts across the world. But was it?

The originally reported source of the signal HD 164595 is a solar system which is a few billion years older than our own, but is centered on a star of a similar brightness and size to our Sun. The signal was picked up by the RATAN-600 radio telescope in Zelenchukskaya, Russia shown below.

However, significant number of people around our globe are not convinced by TASS' version, believing it is one of the many cover ups aimed at deceiving us regarding the existence of advanced alien life from beyond our Solar System. They question Russia's motives for the denial of the signals validity --you'll have to draw your own conclusions.

The Russian scientists who originally intercepted the enigmatic signals, said they believed that they came from a cluster of stars ninety-four light years away in the Hercules constellation. The signals' frequency and power suggested there was a good chance they were messages from smart extraterrestrials. Excitement in the scientific community suddenly spiked.

Scientists say that HD 164595 has a Neptune-sized planet that is about seventeen times the mass of Earth. Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute in California, says its orbit is too tight it is too close to its sun for life as we know it to exist.

“We, indeed, discovered an unusual signal," said Alexander Ipatov, who works at the Russian Academy of Sciences in an interview with TASS. "However, an additional check showed that it was emanating from a Soviet military satellite, which had not been entered into any of the catalogs of celestial bodies. It can be said with confidence that no sought-for signal has been detected yet.”

On August 29th, we reported that an international team of astronomers detected signals coming from almost 100 light years away, that appeared to be a strong candidate for extraterrestrial contact, according to a document circulated by Alexander Panov, a theorectical physicist at Lomonosov Moscow State University --"a strong signal in the direction of HD164595, a planet system in the constellation Hercules was detected on May 15, using the RATAN-600 radio telescope (above) in the Russian Republic of Karachay-Cherkessia."

Subsequently, Eric Korpela, an astronomer with Berkeley SETI, downplayed the hype over this latest signal in a note reported by VOX on the Berkeley SETI website. "All in all, it's relatively uninteresting from a SETI standpoint." Korpela continued:

"I looked over the presentation. I was unimpressed. In one out of 39 scans that passed over star showed a signal at about 4.5 times the mean noise power with a profile somewhat like the beam profile. Of course SETI@home has seen millions of potential signals with similar characteristics, but it takes more than that to make a good candidate. Multiple detections are a minimum criterio

"Because the receivers used were making broad band measurements, there's really nothing about this "signal" that would distinguish it from a natural radio transient (stellar flare, active galactic nucleus, microlensing of a background source, etc.) There's also nothing that could distinguish it from a satellite passing through the telescope field of view. All in all, it's relatively uninteresting from a SETI standpoint."

"If the transient claimed originates from beyond the Earth, then, given what we currently know of the parameters of the RATAN search, such events ought to be common. The fact that they are not frequently seen in continuum imaging surveys suggests that the RATAN transient is likely due to instrumental interference or to some other artifact of human technology. While absence of evidence for extraterrestrial intelligence is by no means evidence of absence, our GBT observations did not detect ongoing emission from the direction of HD 164595 between9.1 and 11.6 GHz to a sensitivity of ∼ 10 mJy (10σ).

"Single-epoch transients are by their nature hard to confirm ordeny, illustrating the need for confirming followup, either at a later time, or as part of the observing strategy (whether triggered follow-up of interesting sources, or some form of onoff observing). We intend to re-observe HD 164595 as part of the Breakthrough Listen target list, along with ongoing observations of targets selected using a range of criteria."

The Berkeley SETI team concluded that they "welcome opportunities for partnership in order to quickly validate and analyze candidate signals, to continue to develop tools and techniques, and to share our excitement with those who, like us, seek to answer the question, “Are we alone?”.

Eleven Elliptical Galaxies Found Flying Free in Space Beyond Their Home Clusters

"Our Early Solar System Harbored SuperEarths" (Weekend Feature)

Jupiter's Eerie Voice --NASA's First Juno Mission Flyby: "Unlike Anything in Our Solar System" (LISTEN)

Planet Nine --"Could Spell Doom for Our Solar System"

The 'Monster' of Our Solar System --"In the Milky Way Alone, a Billion Jupiter-Like Worlds Could Be Orbiting Stars"

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Rakhine forest #turtle critically #endangered species . #TSA and #WCS are doing conservation #Rakhine Yoma. #CITES https://t.co/fLvgdZ5kVd
https://t.co/fLvgdZ5kVd

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My Dinner With the Devil
Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan, had not done any formal interviews in about a decade back in the '80s. Then he called OZY's Eugene S. Robinson.
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Apple May Test iPhone Users' Loyalty If It Dumps The Headphone Jack

The next iPhone, expected to be unveiled Wednesday, may be missing something familiar: the ubiquitous headphone jack. Usability experts say the change could really sit badly with Apple customers.

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Decrying Hair Rule, South African Students Demand To Be 'Naturally Who We Are'

Pretoria High School for Girls has long banned certain hairstyles so that students would have a "neat" appearance. Now black students are pushing back.

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Coming Soon: How I Built This

On September 12, NPR launches a new podcast, How I Built This, hosted by Guy Raz. The show features innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.

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Why Your Facebook Habit At Work Makes Economists Worry

Productivity, a key measure of the economy's health, has been growing more slowly in recent years. Can Facebook and other social media distractions on the job be partly to blame?

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Silent, But Not Lost: Philae Lander's Final Resting Place Located On Comet

The lander was the first to ever set down on a comet — but couldn't get enough sunlight to recharge its batteries, and went into hibernation. New images show Philae stuck in a crack.

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Before Apple And Facebook, There Was Something More Revolutionary

More than any of today's icons — Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and the rest — Guglielmo Marconi was uniquely at the center of the communication revolution of his time, says Marc Raboy.

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A Teen Might Pick The Landing Site For NASA's Next Mars Rover

Alex Longo hopes to be the first person to walk on Mars. In the meantime, the Raleigh, N.C., sophomore has suggested a landing site for the next rover mission. His pick is one of four finalists.

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gaia

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Dear IUCN Congress: Lead On Gender Equality!
The 2016 IUCN International World Conservation Congress kicked off a few days ago here in Honolulu, Hawaii. The conference theme is 'Planet at the Crossroads', and a series of journeys, from 'Business' to 'Biosecurity' have been highlighted as key issue areas to frame dialogues and conversations during the Congress.

As an estimated 8,000 advocates, scientists and conservationists convene to advance the protection of our world's natural resources, we also see that people and cultures are inextricably linked to these efforts, as stewards of their lands.

Our planet is at a crossroads, and people are also at a crossroads. We must be willing to take urgent and bold action to challenge unsustainable systems in our societies, and recognize how power and privilege underpin environmental degradation and resource extraction.

People are really at the heart, or should be at the heart, of our sharing and learning here at the IUCN Congress. And further, an understanding that people's interactions with nature, in communities and households, is very much framed by intersections such as race, class, culture and, in particular, gender.

Why Gender & Conservation?

Gender is a social construct. While not immutable nor universal, gender shapes expectations, attributes, roles, capacities and rights of women and men around the world- and in turn, experiences and interactions with the natural environment. Women, compared to men, often have limited access to resources, more restricted rights, limited mobility, and a muted voice in shaping decisions and influencing policy. At the same time, gender roles generally ascribed to women such as informal, reproductive work often relate to caregiving for households and communities, caretaking of seeds and soils, maintaining traditional agricultural knowledge, and responsibility for natural resource management such as firewood and water, and thus these roles create opportunity for engagement as women bring diverse and critical solutions to conservation.

IUCN as a Gender Champion

As one of the leading environmental organizations in the world, IUCN has been at the forefront of recognizing women's rights and gender equality as a critical element of conservation and sustainable development. Since its founding in 1948, over 40 Congress resolutions have recognized women's role in resource management and at least 16 have emphasized the need for gender analysis and planning in conservation work.

Following a resolution in 1996 to develop a gender policy, the approved policy was passed in 1998 and included the creation of a Global Senior Gender Adviser Office (GGO), which almost 20 years later, now includes a global staff of over 15 people, conducting technical work with IUCN members around the world. This work has included support to mainstreaming gender into international environmental policy frameworks, and support to members at national level, creating action plans on gender in climate change and biodiversity planning. In addition to the Global Gender Office, IUCN has also established regional Gender Focal Points to monitor implementation of the IUCN Gender Policy at all levels.

This institutional recognition of gender issues is quite noteworthy for an intergovernmental organization such as IUCN, as it has taken many decades for other environmental frameworks and mechanisms to begin developing policies to integrate social issues into their work. This is beginning to shift across the board, and in particular, in 2015, where both the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Agreement, placed gender equality as central to all actions.

As highlighted in the Opening Session of the IUCN World Conservation Congress, this is the largest global meeting of decision-makers and practitioners since the major global development agreements of 2015--and an important opportunity to focus on implementation and action. It is a moment for IUCN to highlight its strong history and work on gender equality, which the Congress seemingly recognized: "The IUCN Congress 2016 aims to be the most gender-responsive Congress in IUCN's history. It will comply with the Union's Gender Policy as well as the various mandates adopted by IUCN's General Assemblies. The IUCN Congress Gender Mainstreaming Strategy was created to ensure that IUCN's policies and actions reflect the importance of gender equality in all of the Union's work."

Measuring Success

In reflecting on the first few days of the 2016 IUCN Congress, there are some glaring challenges to achieving the goal of being the most 'gender-responsive' Congress in IUCN's history.

Motions. As stated above, this Congress marks a critical moment for building towards action and implementation from the big agendas decided in 2015. The Congress intends to leave with a Conservation Agenda - to help achieve a series of goals. It would seem unquestionable given progress on gender, and IUCN's history on this work, that gender equality would be a pillar of this agenda. However, the 2016 Congress will actually mark the first Congress in decades where out of 99 resolutions, there is not a single reference to gender.

Visibility. It's also surprising that out of the 17 journeys/ topics identified as critical issues for this 'planet at a crossroads', it seems that the concerns of people and communities, and in particular, gender issues are very hidden within the agenda. IUCN certainly has the expertise, partnerships and knowledge for gender equality, women's rights and the role of local communities / indigenous peoples to be critical journey not only as part of the themes of the conference but woven throughout all of the conference.

Influence. While much progress still needs to be made in integrating gender into the efforts of environmental conservation groups such as the members of IUCN, many do have gender advisors or advocates working within these organizations. In discussions with fellow gender advocates here at the Congress on the lack of gender issues in the motions as well as in events, there seems to be some shared experiences of either not being fully engaged in preparations for sessions and motions in relation to the World Congress but also challenges in support or political will among the organizations to see gender, women rights and the rights of indigenous peoples as priority issues. This suggests a need for continued opportunities for capacity building and knowledge sharing on how gender is central to all conservation work, and not simply an 'add-on'.

Voice. Most significant is an observation that many panels / sessions of the IUCN Congress have not included or prioritized people most impacted by environmental degradation, or leading conservation efforts, in particular, indigenous women. Beyond this, there is a lack of space for these important voices to be heard in the first place. As an example, an incredible group of indigenous women from Kenya, Thailand, Guatemala, Hawaii, Fiji and Russia, part of the Indigenous Women's Biodiversity Network (IWBN) held an event offsite on Friday, September 2nd, at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The organizers explained that they did not know in time about funding availability to be able to apply for an official side event slot. This sharing of experiences of resources management and conservation via traditional knowledge was worthy of a High-Level Panel at the IUCN Congress, but at minimum, more flexibility and space to ensure the participation and voice of indigenous women, peoples and frontline communities should be guaranteed in this type of space.

This is not to diminish the good work that is going on to highlight gender in the IUCN Congress, particularly via the efforts of the Senior Global Gender Office, as well as the many gender experts, advocates and indigenous women activists who are here organizing and sharing their experiences. However, with such a rich history in leadership on gender issues, and with a specific policy for gender mainstreaming, one would expect a much stronger coordination and emphasis on the topic. In addition, a much more progressive understanding that for the Congress to be truly gender responsive and also responsive to human rights, we must work to ensure that gender balance is only a first step. In addition to ensuring men and women in equal number we must also make space and prioritize frontline communities who are leading resilience efforts- to voice their challenges and their solutions for conservation and sustainable development.

Achieving Success

As the IUCN Congress moves from the Forum to the Members Assembly on Tuesday, there are a number of things which can be done over the coming days and in the future to ensure the Congress is fulfilling IUCN's role as a champion of gender issues.

Raise your voice. IUCN members should use the opportunity of the Assembly to raise the importance of gender equality and women's rights in conservation and sustainable development, in line with the big agreements of 2015 and IUCN mandates and policies. Members should highlight that this is the first Congress where gender has been absent from motions, and that it must not be absent in the future conservation agenda.

Reflect. Members should also reflect on the motions/events submitted and planning for the Congress and whether there were opportunities to engage with gender advisors and staff which were not utilized or explored.

Engage. Congress participants should join in the conversation on gender issues. Advocates at the Congress have been using the hashtag #IUCNGender to highlight some critical conversations. In addition, anyone interested in these issues is welcome to join an open and informal 'women and gender caucus' which meets at 8am each morning on level 3.

Lead. Finally, IUCN must ensure gender equality, and their leadership on this issue, remains as a guiding principle for the organization. Articulated in enhanced collaboration with women's groups and gender advocates around the world, greater coherence to its internal mainstreaming policies, and continued support to members on technical training and capacity building around gender issues.

-- 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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Flowers critical link to bacteria transmission in wild bees
Flowers are a hot spot of transmission of bacteria that end up in the microbiome of wild bees, new research has found. The work shows for the first time that multiple flower and wild bee species share several of the same types of bacteria. Bees therefore obtain both food and bacteria from flowers. These bacteria may play important roles in bee health.
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Butterflies: Agonistic display or courtship behavior?
A study shows that contests of butterflies occur only as erroneous courtships between sexually active males that are unable to distinguish the sex of the other butterflies.
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First stars and galaxies are not as old as we thought, say Planck astronomers
Latest observations of CMB polarization rekindle debate over the start of reionization

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IMG_9677.jpg

clayjon61 posted a photo:

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clayjon61 posted a photo:

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Summers Eve

Alex Chilli posted a photo:

After some camera downtime following the U.S. , some nice light at the end of August forced me to pick it up again - as the sun goes down - trying to avoid the more obvious shot of St Paul's the light falling on the people looked great.

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Red Panda

Mathias Appel posted a photo:

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Judge Threads Needle on Dakota Access Pipeline Temporary Restraining Order
A federal judge has granted in part and denied in part the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's request to temporarily stop work on a portion of the $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline. At issue is the Sioux Nation's attempt to protect ancient prayer and burial grounds.

U.S. District Judge Boasberg said that work will temporarily stop between State Highway 1806 and 20 miles east of Lake Oahe, but that work will continue west of the highway. At issue is whether The United States Army Corps of Engineers has any jurisdiction on the private land.

This means that the site of mass grave and artifact desecration by contractors at the site of a violent confrontation between protestors and Energy Transfer Inc.'s security forces over the holiday weekend is not resolved. Women and children were maced, pepper sprayed, and attacked by security dogs, according to Tribal Leaders. Tribal Chairman David Archambault II said in a press release, "Sacred places containing ancient burial sites, places of prayer and other significant cultural artifacts of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe were destroyed Saturday by Energy Transfer Partners.

Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Chairman Harold Frazier is calling on all members of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe to avoid traveling to or doing business in the Mandan-Bismarck area until this crisis is resolved. "I fear for my people's safety, the Chairman said in a press release.

Attorneys for Energy Transfer Partners denied that workers destroyed any cultural sites, but evidence filed by the Plaintiffs and the Sioux Nation indicate otherwise.

Testimony in support of the Temporary Restraining Order against DALP interests filed by Tim Mentz reads, in part:

The elders say that reburying can help deal with the loss and hurt of disturbing these graves. These are people whose graves are in some cases known about and who have family connections in Cannon Ball. We want an opportunity to rebury our relatives. We normally are given this opportunity if gravesites are disturbed.

I do not believe that the timing of this construction was an accident or coincidence. Based on my observations, the nearest area of construction in the right of way west of Highway 1806 is around 20 miles away. It appears that DAPL drove the bulldozers approximately 20 miles of uncleared right of way to access the precise area that we surveyed and described in my declaration. The work started very early in the morning and they were accompanied by private security with dogs and with a helicopter overhead, indicating that the work was planned with care and that controversy was expected.

Immediately recognizing the need to stop this process, on August 4, 2016 the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe along with attorneys from Earth Justice filed a motion with supporting documents for a preliminary injunction against the DAPL. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) issued the initial permitting for the pipeline. Federal Judge James E. Boasberg rejected the motion to ignore the injunction request and ordered a status conference on September 14, leaving room for discussion after his ruling September 9.

-- 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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Most humpback whales to be taken off federal endangered species list

Nine of 14 distinct populations to be removed from endangered list
Four populations still listed as endangered, one as threatened

Federal authorities are taking most humpback whales off the endangered species list, saying they have recovered enough in the last 40 years to warrant being removed.

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) said on Monday that nine of the 14 distinct populations of humpbacks would be removed, while four distinct populations remain listed as endangered and one as threatened.

Continue reading...
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Obama Cements His Climate Legacy
After promising to slow the rise of the oceans in 2008, president Barack Obama has finally cemented his climate legacy.

Over the weekend, the world's two largest emitters of greenhouse gases, the U.S. and China formally ratified the Paris climate change pact. The move is being hailed as a crucial step in the fight against global warming. Speaking together with China's Xi Jinping, Obama said:

"Just as I believe the Paris agreement will ultimately prove to be a turning point for our planet, I believe that history will judge today's efforts as pivotal. We have a saying in America that you need to put your money where your mouth is. And when it comes to combating climate change that is what we are doing ... we are leading by example."

Painstakingly crafted and agreed to by more than 190 nations last December, the treaty is the by product of over 20 years of fraught negotiations. In the past, Beijing and Washington locked horns over who should take responsibility for the cuts: the U.S., the largest emitter historically, or China, the biggest polluter at present?

But, in 2014 as the science behind climate change grew ever more frightening, the two super powers joined forces to spreadhead a new global effort.

The move came six months after the UN released its most terrifying climate report yet: world temperatures are set to race past the four degrees Celsius mark before the turn of this century. And, whilst this may not sound like much, its enough to usher in a mass extinction event as it brings about changes not seen the last Ice Age.

"When the two largest emitters lock arms to solve climate change, that is when you know we are on the right track," said David Waskow from the World Resources Institute: "Never before have these two countries worked so closely together to address a global challenge. There's no question that this historic partnership on climate change will be one of the defining legacies of Obama's presidency."

The move came as monthly temperatures continue to smash records: July was the hottest July on record.

With less than 11 weeks before Americans head to the polls, the Obama administration is desperate to solidify the deal in the event of a Donald Trump presidency.

In his signature louche manner, the former Apprentice star has dismissed climate change as a
hoax and threatened to pull the U.S. out the pact if he wins the White House this November.

But, it was purposely structured in such that it would take years to unwind once it goes into effect. However, this can only happen one month after 55 nations representing some 55% of emissions rubber stamp it. Up until last weekend, only 24 countries covering a meager 1.08% of emissions had done so. The U.S. and China only account for 38% of emissions.

Over 30 other nations have indicated that they will sign up this year, and in a bid to fast track the process, the U.N. is hosting a special summit in New York this month which may lead to a ratification surge. According to some campaigners, the treaty may even come into effect before the UN climate summit in Marakkesh this November.

Once the accord comes into force, all nations will have to slash their emissions according to the targets laid out last December. And, although the sum total of those pledges is not enough to stave off dangerous climate change, the accord does promise to ratchet up ambition every 5 years.

Six years ago, world leaders promised to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius. But, the latest estimates indicate that we are in danger of surpassing that limit within the next 15 years.

According to a NASA funded study, civilizations in the past have collapsed because of:

"The stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity and the economic stratification of society into Elites and Masses. In unequal societies, Elites grow and consume too much, resulting in a famine among Commoners that eventually causes the collapse of society."

Interestingly, at the end of last weekend's G20 summit, the head of the International Monetary Fund concluded that "growth has been too low for too long for too few." This in part has given rise to populist politics on both sides of the Atlantic: namely Brexit and Trump.

Since the financial crisis 8 years ago, prolonged stagnant growth has only caused the inequality gap to widen whilst the strain on the planet has deepened. So, we can either continue along this business as usual path and veer towards collapse, or we can squarely confront both crises by firing up the green energy sector.

This will create both jobs and growth whilst simultaneously saving our climate. With only 15 years left before we experience dangerous climate change, all nations must urgently step up to the plate. In the words of Pope Francis: "If we destroy Creation, Creation will destroy us."

As actor Leonardo di Caprio reminded world leaders at the UN two years ago: "You can make history or be vilified by it." To paraphrase the great Martin Luther King: "Although the arc of the universe is long, may it bend towards justice."

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

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Why Are Companies Abandoning On-Site Day Care?
While other family-friendly benefits are on the rise, on-site day care is on the verge of extinct ion.
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A Portrait of the U.S. Paralympic Soccer Team

Before they compete in Rio, the soccer players on the U.S. Paralympic team attend a series of grueling training camps. The short film 2-3-1 goes inside this preparation and features the perspectives of the team members themselves. “Our hope is that this film will empower those dealing with psychological trauma and physical disabilities and ultimately shine a light on the beauty of the human spirit,” said Jefferis Gray, the film's writer and producer. 2-3-1 was directed by John Merizalde and produced by Whitelist. To learn more about the Paralympic team, you can visit its website.

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Meet the Latino Drag Queens Defying North Carolina's Bathroom Bill

At Miss Hispanidad Gay 2016, competitors vie for the crown and to represent North Carolina's Hispanic community. The pageant is particularly relevant today: it's a latino, LGBT event in a state that has recently passed laws that repeal the civil rights of trans people. “It's not acceptable in society to kiss or hold hands with our partner,” says Oskar Menen, who goes by the stage name of Gaga L'Draga. “I think the public out there is missing some tolerance for our community.” The Atlantic travelled to Durham, North Carolina, to film the event and get the perspectives of competitors and organizers.

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London Sunset

andy.gittos posted a photo:

Another sun set view from Greenwich Park in London
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Thanks for visiting! Prints and downloads are available from my website... www.andygittos.com

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The Great Pyramids of Giza are located on the outskirts of...

The Great Pyramids of Giza are located on the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt. Dating back to 2580 BC, the Great Pyramid, the largest structure at the site, is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient world and the only one to remain largely intact. With an estimated 2,300,000 stone blocks weighing from 2 to 30 tons each, the 481 foot pyramid was the tallest structure in the world for more than 3,800 years.

29°58′34″N 31°7′58″E

Instagram: http://bit.ly/2ceie01

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Freddie Mercury Now Races Around the Sun
An asteroid has been named for the Queen lead singer, who died in 1991.
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Osiris-Rex: Chasing Asteroid Bennu
NASA's Osiris-Rex spacecraft will hunt down an asteroid and return a sample to Earth.
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NASA Aims at an Asteroid Holding Clues to the Solar System's Roots
The robotic spacecraft Osiris-Rex, to be launched Thursday, will chase down Bennu and then, hopefully, return with a sample from its surface.
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No Longer Missing: Rosetta's Philae Spacecraft Located on Comet
Scientists have found the space lander, which disappeared in 2014 after a rough landing on the surface of a comet.
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