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An owl, silhouetted amongst the branches of a tree in the Marataba Game Reserve, near Thabazimbi in South Africa.
Project Chimps sanctuary in Georgia will house 200-plus chimpanzees after they were declared endangered, effectively ending experimentation on the animals
More than 200 chimpanzees are being transferred to a new sanctuary in Georgia, as the US winds down the controversial practice of using chimps for scientific research.
Related: Eastern gorilla now critically endangered while giant panda situation improves
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A German sunrise, the opening of the 2016 Paralympics in Rio, the ‘Day Of The Goose' in Spain, Roman soldiers on Hadrian's Wall, a 300-year-old lighthouse in Boston Harbor, and much more.
Kev Gregory (General) posted a photo:
Having just come out of the river, an elephant checks out the way ahead, in the Marataba Game Reserve, near Thabazimbi in South Africa.
Read more: Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Costa Rica, International, Peace, Peace Corps, President Obama, John F. Kennedy, 2016 Election, Environment, International Development, Public Service, Politics News
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View of London from Cable Car Emirates Air Line
NASA has successfully launched its first mission sending a spacecraft to an asteroid with the aim of returning samples of space rocks back to Earth.…
How and when did wild wolves turn into domestic pets? Science tells us that humans were behind the domestication of what is now man's best friend—but the timeline of the transformation has always been mysterious. In this video, Atlantic science writer Ed Yong explains the surprising origin of dogs in light of new research.
To celebrate yesterday's launch of “Overview” in the UK, here is a mesmerizing view of residential development in the London suburb of Dagenham. Thank you to everyone who has ordered the book, left an Amazon review, or simply helped to spread the word about the project so far. As I write this in New York, it is very powerful to see this idea resonate not only across the pond, but across the globe. If you have friends in the UK that you think would enjoy the Overviews or the book, a tag or share would be enormously helpful to keep the momentum going. I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend, wherever you are in the world!
Instagram: http://bit.ly/2cji8CZ
“Overview” in the UK: http://amzn.to/2bYpAkY
Flying people to an asteroid is really hard, so NASA wants to bring part of it to them. But some former astronauts say the $2 billion plan was born of politics and budget cuts, and makes little sense.
SpaceX are still investigating the explosion that caused its Falcon 9 rocket, and the Facebook satellite it was carrying, to erupt into flames last week.…
What's the future of technology and design that's driven by Big Data? Kenneth Cukier of the Economist looks at what's next for machine learning and human knowledge.
Collecting more data doesn't always lead to better understanding. Data analyst Susan Etlinger explains why we need to deepen our critical thinking skills as we come to rely more on big data.
Scientist Riccardo Sabatini says we have the technology to read the human genome and predict things like height, eye color, age — all from a vial of blood.
The Federal Aviation Administration is warning owners of the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone not to turn their phones on or charge them during flights — and not to put the devices in checked bags, either.
The FCC has seen the future of cable TV, and it looks like the apps on your smartphone. The agency will vote later this month on a proposal to free consumers from the set-top box.
With Apple doing away with the ubiquitous headphone jack on its new iPhones, lots of people are puzzled about how they'll be able to charge their phones and listen to wired headphones simultaneously.
One study found booking requests from Airbnb users with African-American sounding names were roughly 16 percent less likely to be accepted; another found discrepancies in hosts' profits.
The mission aims to circle a hill-sized asteroid for two years, then skim its surface and bring a hearty sample of 4.5 billion-year-old dirt back to Earth.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the drone has become America's go-to weapon when it comes to tracking and killing extremists. But drones have raised many legal, moral and ethical 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.
-- 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.
A computer program can map cancer progression in much the same way historical explorers drew maps of the Earth without satellite imaging. Small bits of data can be pieced together to form a picture.
Luigi Galvani Scientist of the Day
Luigi Galvani, an Italian physician, was born Sep. 9, 1737.
Questions are being asked why no one has ever seen pallid, 11*-fingered WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and NASA ‘naut Jeff Williams in the same room at the same time, after sharp-eyed observers noted the pair's startling physical resemblance.…
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Maitland Station
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Effects of habitat loss and climate change mean the future of the tiny native mammal is uncertain
Numbers of Britain's native dormouse have declined by more than a third since 2000, according to the first definitive report on the state of the species.
The tiny, golden-brown animals were once widespread throughout England and Wales, but have become one of Britain's most threatened mammals due to loss and fragmentation of their woodland habitat, changes in land management and a warmer climate.
Related: How the dormouse is returning to England's hedgerows after 100 years
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Full Text:
Indigo buntings often migrate by night, using the stars to navigate. The seasonality of bird migration is shifting in response to climate change. As a result, birds in the United States are arriving at their northern breeding grounds earlier in spring -- and may be departing later in fall. Scientists supported by the National Science Foundation made the migration shift discovery thanks to information aggregated from two sources: remote-sensing data from weather surveillance radar and ground-based data collected in citizen science databases.
Image credit: Kyle Horton
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The ubiquity of smartphones and their sophisticated gadgetry makes them an ideal tool to steal sensitive data from 3-D printers. That's according to a new University at Buffalo study that explores security vulnerabilities of 3-D printing, also called additive manufacturing, which analysts say will become a multibillion-dollar industry employed to build everything from rocket engines to heart valves. Unlike most security hacks, the researchers did not simulate a cyberattack. Instead, the researchers programmed a common smartphone's built-in sensors to measure electromagnetic energy and acoustic waves that emanate from 3-D printers. These sensors can infer the location of the print nozzle as it moves to create the three-dimensional object being printed. According to the researchers, the tests show that smartphones are quite capable of retrieving enough data to put sensitive information at risk.
Image credit: Wenyao Xu
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Scientists have revealed Yersinia pestis as the bacteria that caused London's 1665 Great Plague.…
It sounds like the plot of a half-baked stoner movie screenplay, but it's actually happening: Google boss company Alphabet and Mexican food chain Chipotle have become the flying burrito brothers under a delivery-by-drone plan that will first target the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech).…
Cross-Posted from DeSmogBlog
In the two months leading up to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' decision to issue to the Dakota Access pipeline project an allotment of Nationwide 12 permits (NWP) — a de facto fast-track federal authorization of the project — an army of oil industry players submitted comments to the Corps to ensure that fast-track authority remains in place going forward.
This fast-track permitting process is used to bypass more rigorous environmental and public review for major pipeline infrastructure projects by treating them as smaller projects.
Photo Credit: Tony Webster | Flickr
Oil and gas industry groups submitted comments in response to the Corps' June 1 announcement in the Federal Register that it was "requesting comment on all aspects of these proposed nationwide permits" and that it wanted "comments on the proposed new and modified NWPs, as well as the NWP general conditions and definitions." Based on the comments received, in addition to other factors, the Corps will make a decision in the coming months about the future of the use of the controversial NWP 12, which has become a key part of President Barack Obama's climate and energy legacy.
Beyond Dakota Access, the Army Corps of Engineers (and by extension the Obama Administration) also used NWP 12 to approve key and massive sections of both Enbridge's Flanagan South pipeline and TransCanada's southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline known as the Gulf Coast Pipeline. Comments submitted as a collective by environmental groups, such as the Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, several 350.org local chapters, the Center for Biological Diversity, WildEarth Guardians, Corporate Ethics International, and others, allege NWP 12 abuses by the Obama administration.
Image Credit: Regulations.gov
The groups say NWP was never intended to authorize massive pipeline infrastructure projects and that that kind of permitting authority should no longer exist. Instead, they argued in their August 1 comment, federal agencies should be required to issue Clean Water Act Section 404 permits and do a broader environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
"Simply put, the Congress did not intend the NWP program to be used to streamline major infrastructure projects like the Gulf Coast Pipeline, the Flanagan South Pipeline, and the Dakota Access Pipeline," reads their comment. "For the reasons explained herein, we strongly oppose the reissuance of NWP 12 and its provisions that allow segmented approval of major pipelines without any project-specific environmental review or public review process."
"Oil companies have been using this antiquated fast-track permit process that was not designed to properly address the issues of mega-projects such as the Dakota Access pipeline," Dallas Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network stated in the environmental groups' press release at the closing of the NWP 12 comment period. "Meanwhile, tribal rights to consultation have been trampled and Big Oil is allowed to put our waters, air and land at immense risk. This cannot continue, it's time for an overhaul."
Industry groups, on the other hand, made their own arguments for the status quo.
Many industry groups chimed in on the future of NWP 12. They included the American Petroleum Institute (API), Ohio Oil and Gas Association, West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association, Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, the Baker Botts Texas Industry Project (a who's who of petrochemical corporations such as Halliburton, ExxonMobil, Shell Oil, Chevron, Marathon Petroleum, Kinder Morgan, and BP, as of 2008), coal and natural gas utility company Southern Company, and others.
One of those other commenters was the Domestic Energy Producers Alliance (DEPA), a lobbying and advocacy consortium spearheaded by Harold Hamm, founder and CEO of hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") giant Continental Resources, as well as energy aide to the Donald Trump presidential campaign and potential future U.S. Secretary of Energy.
Continental Resources, as reported by DeSmog, will send some of its oil through Dakota Access and previously signed a shipping contract for the Keystone XL pipeline.
"DEPA applauds the Corps for its efforts to reissue the NWPs as they are an important regulatory vehicle to authorize activities that have minimal individual and cumulative adverse environmental effects under the Clean Water Act, Section 404 Program," wrote DEPA. "These permits are critical to DEPA's members in their day to day operations."
Another commenter was Berkshire Hathaway Energy, a "most of the above" energy sources utility company (including coal and natural gas) owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway holding company. Buffett serves as a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
"Berkshire Hathaway Energy supports the Corps' intention to issue NWPs," wrote Berkshire Hathaway Energy. "The continued implementation of the NWPs is essential to the ongoing operation of Berkshire Hathaway Energy's businesses — particularly in circumstances when timely service restoration is critical."
On August 1, 2016, the day the commenting period closed for the future of NWP 12 and just days after the Army Corps issued a slew of NWP 12 determinations for Dakota Access, the Obama White House's Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) issued a 34-page guidance memorandum, which could have potential implications for the environmental review of projects like Dakota Access.
That memo, while non-binding, calls for climate change considerations when executive branch agencies weigh what to do about infrastructure projects under the auspices of NEPA.
"Climate change is a fundamental environmental issue, and its effects fall squarely within NEPA's purview," wrote CEQ. "Climate change is a particularly complex challenge given its global nature and the inherent interrelationships among its sources, causation, mechanisms of action, and impacts. Analyzing a proposed action's GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions and the effects of climate change relevant to a proposed action — particularly how climate change may change an action's environmental effects — can provide useful information to decision makers and the public."
NWP 12 does not receive mention in the memo. Neither does Dakota Access, Keystone XL, nor Flanagan South.
The non-binding guidance, which some have pointed to as an example of the Obama White House applying the "climate test" to the permitting of energy infrastructure projects, has been met with mixed reaction by the fossil fuel industry and its legal counsel.
The Center for Liquefied Natural Gas, a pro-fracked gas exports group created by API, denounced the CEQ memo. So too did climate change denier U.S. Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), as well as U.S. Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY).
Industry attorneys, however, do not view the guidance with the same level of trepidation, at least not across the board. On one hand, the firms Holland & Knight and K&L Gates — both of which work with industry clients ranging from Chevron and ExxonMobil to Chesapeake Energy and Kinder Morgan — have pointed to the risk of litigation that could arise as a result of the NEPA guidance. On the other end of the spectrum, the firms Squire Patton Boggs and Greenberg Traurig LLP do not appear to be quite as alarmed.
Greenberg Traurig — whose clients include Duke Energy, BP, Arch Coal, and others — jovially pointed out in a memo that CEQ's NEPA guidance does not take lifecycle supply chain greenhouse gas emissions into its accounting. The firm also points out that, with agency deference reigning supreme throughout the memo, "agencies should exercise judgment when considering whether to apply this guidance to the extent practicable to an on-going NEPA process."
Francesca Ciliberti-Ayres, one of the Greenberg Traurig memo co-authors, formerly served as legal counsel for pipeline giant El Paso Corporation.
Similar to Greenberg Traurig, the firm Patton Boggs attempted to quell its clients' fears in its own memo written in response to the CEQ guidance memo. Patton Boggs' clients also have included a number of oil and gas energy companies and lobbying groups, such as API, ConocoPhillips, Halliburton, Marathon Oil, and others.
"The new guidance has the potential to add substantial time and expense to all environmental reviews for companies and other entities currently undergoing the NEPA process — and for future actions," Patton Boggs' attorneys wrote.
"However, it will likely take some time for agencies to acclimate their review processes to the new requirements. Interested persons and companies would help themselves both by developing internal off the shelf information to accommodate the new review requirements and by working with federal agencies to develop efficient methodologies to expedite consideration on this issue, minimize any additional review time and add clarity to the process."
J. Gordon Arbuckle, a Patton Boggs memo co-author, has previously worked on permitting projects such as the massive Trans-Alaska Pipeline, the Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, and others.
Using NWP 12 to permit major pipeline projects in a quiet and less transparent manner made its debut in the Obama White House. However, it remains unclear whether its use, or the somewhat contradictory NEPA guidelines from CEQ, will ultimately shape Obama's climate legacy in the years to come.
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Cape Canaveral explosion destroys ‘Facebook satellite', while mystery surrounds fate of Chinese mission
September has not seen a good start for rocket launches, with both US and Chinese failures. At 9.07am EDT on the 1st, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, destroying a $200m Israeli communications satellite called Amos 6.
The accident took place during a practice countdown during which fuel is pumped into the rocket and the engines started to make sure everything is working properly. Clearly they were not.
Related: SpaceX rocket explosion: Mark Zuckerberg laments loss of Internet.org satellite
Continue reading...Clocks will no longer go back in October due to measure introduced to make better use of winter daylight
Turkey will stop turning back its clocks this winter, staying on summer time all year round to make better use of daylight.
The clocks in Turkey went forward one hour on 27 March for summer, in line with the rest of Europe.
Continue reading...matokuwapi1 posted a photo:
London, Ontario, Canada.
It's hot and humid late summer night. The day ends with a spectacular sunset from my front yard. Really wished I was down at Grand Bend tonight.
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More than 200,000 objects are now accessible online via collection.cooperhewitt.org, following an 18-month mass digitization effort, in collaboration with the Smithsonian's Digitization Program Office. The user-friendly interface enables all audiences—casual browsers, designers, curators, educators, students and scholars—to explore and examine one of the most diverse and comprehensive collections of design works in existence.
See how they did it in this short process video. To access the collection visit the website: collection.cooperhewitt.org
The post Unprecedented Access to the Cooper Hewitt's Collection appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.
A photograph of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft prior to installation of thermal blankets. The REXIS instrument is labelled. (Image courtesy NASA)
At 7:05 pm (EDT), Thursday, Sept. 8, NASA plans to launch a spacecraft to a near-Earth asteroid named Bennu. Among that spacecraft's five instruments is a student experiment that will use X-rays to help determine Bennu's surface composition.
The Regolith X-Ray Imaging Spectrometer, or REXIS, was developed by researchers and students at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), both in Cambridge, Mass. It is only the second student experiment to fly on a NASA interplanetary mission.
“With Harvard undergraduates, we designed a wide-field X-ray imaging instrument that was built by students at MIT,” says Harvard astronomer and Deputy Instrument Scientist Josh Grindlay. Richard Binzel at MIT is Instrument Scientist for REXIS.
“A principal goal for REXIS was educating students,” says instrument scientist and Harvard astronomer Jaesub Hong.
The mission, called the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx), will be launched with an Atlas V from Cape Canaveral, Florida. After its two-year journey to Bennu, the spacecraft will spend nearly two years making observations and measurements before collecting a surface sample and returning it to Earth.
REXIS will help the mission team select the sample site by characterizing the asteroid's surface. Bennu emits X-rays through a process known as fluorescence, in which X-rays from the Sun make atoms on the asteroid”s surface glow at specific energies, depending on which chemical elements are present.
“REXIS can image enhanced patches of glowing elements like magnesium, silicon, or iron that are typical in chondrite-type asteroids,” says instrument scientist Branden Allen.
The asteroid Bennu is about 1,600 feet across, about twice the height of Boston's John Hancock Tower. REXIS will be able to resolve details about 18 feet across.
Like many asteroids, Bennu represents a relic from the solar system's formation. It formed as bits of primitive material stuck together over time. As a result, it can tell scientists about the history of our solar system. Asteroids like Bennu may have delivered water, carbon, and other substances crucial to life to the early Earth.
REXIS is a $5 million project that involved nearly 50 undergraduate students from MIT and Harvard.
The OSIRIS-REx mission is being led by the University of Arizona under principal investigator Dante Lauretta. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland is managing the mission.
Headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) is a joint collaboration between the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Harvard College Observatory. CfA scientists, organized into six research divisions, study the origin, evolution and ultimate fate of the universe.
The post Asteroid Mission carries Student X-ray Experiment appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.
US one sheet for CAMERAPERSON (Kirsten Johnson, USA, 2016)
Designer: TBD
Poster source: Janus Films
One of the best docs of the year, Cameraperson opens on Friday.
Ant (Stenamma sp.) collected in Rouge National Urban Park, Ontario, Canada, and photographed at the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics (sample ID: BIOUG12661-F08; specimen record: http://www.boldsystems.org/index.php/Public_RecordView?processid=SSROA2204-14; BIN: http://www.boldsystems.org/index.php/Public_BarcodeCluster?clusteruri=BOLD:ACN8345)
Giovanni Anselmo,
Untitled, 1984
canvas, granite, steel cord
Prime minister's decree comes after series of amateurish sculptures sprang up across country to be met with anger and scorn
In response to a series of questionable statues that have sprung up in Egypt, the prime minister has banned all public artworks not approved by the ministry of culture.
Sherif Ismail issued the decree after a controversial statue was unveiled in the eastern city of Sohag.
Related: Egypt: sculpture honouring military criticised for portraying sexual harassment
#نفرتيتي لأصحاب قوة الملاحظة ما هو الفرق بين الصورتين ؟؟ pic.twitter.com/XhvfWHbstQ
Continue reading...designboom attended the preview of the exhibition to ask leibovitz how the project has evolved in the last ten years, and what changes she has noticed in regards to how women are represented now.
The post annie leibovitz's women: new portraits exhibition opens at fabrica orobia in milan appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.
the pink, X-shaped outdoor loungers custom-built for the area accommodate up to four people each.
The post j. mayer h. sets ‘XXX' street furniture in new york's times square appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.
A National Museum of Australia exhibition tells the history of the world in 100 objects mostly sourced from the British Museum, ranging from a counterfeit Chelsea shirt to a stone tool that reaches back to the dawn of humanity
• Ritual sacrifice, ancient insults and sacred fire: 2 million years of history in pictures
The exhibition is billed as “two million years of history in one room”, but Mathew Trinca, director of the National Museum of Australia, describes it simply as “the story of us”.
Sourced from the British Museum with some Antipodean additions, A History of the World in 100 Objects is the National Museum's spring/summer blockbuster exhibition: a collection of objects that show the span of human history, from early stone tools to Javanese shadow puppets to an HSBC sharia-compliant, no-interest credit card.
Related: Ritual sacrifice, ancient insults and sacred fire: 2 million years of history in pictures
Continue reading...Too often, the product design, product management, and engineering teams are thought of as three separate entities. This divide, according to Cap Watkins, the VP of Design at Buzzfeed, can lead designers to feel undervalued or even defensive when the product managers or engineers attempt to make suggestions to their work. Having realized this battle at Buzzfeed, Watkins proposed the question: “How do we create a culture of empowerment for design?”
In this talk, Watkins provides a step-by-step process to blur the lines between the different product building teams in an effort to get feedback on not only the work being done, but also the process on how that work gets done. Change is complicated and creating the internal partnerships will adjust the way people work, ultimately for the better. “We have to realize that working together doesn't mean we're trying to take each others job,” says Watkins. “We're just trying to be better collaborators.”
Watkins is a product designer living and working in Brooklyn. He is currently the VP of Design at BuzzFeed, as well as a blogger, podcast guest, conference speaker, and lover of start-ups and technology. He believes in thoughtful, holistic design solutions that get out of the way and empower people to accomplish more. His past work includes Etsy, Zoosk, Formspring, and hush-hush stuff at Amazon.
China is ready to put on the "ear phones" and flip the "ON" switch for the world's largest, most powerful radio telescope, that is nearing completion in a vast, bowl-shaped valley in the mountainous southwestern province of Guizhou by the end of September, accompanied by regulations to protect the facility. Its unrivaled precision will allow astronomers to survey the Milky Way and other galaxies and detect faint pulsars, and work as a powerful ground station for future space missions.
"A radio telescope is like a sensitive ear, listening to tell meaningful radio messages from white noise in the universe," said Nan Rendong, chief scientist of the FAST project. He told Xinhua that the huge dish will enable much more accurate detection. "It is like identifying the sound of cicadas in a thunderstorm."
"Having a more sensitive telescope, we can receive weaker and more distant radio messages," Wu Xiangping, director-general of the Chinese Astronomical Society, "It will help us to search for intelligent life outside of the galaxy and explore the origins of the universe," he added underscoring the China's race to be the first nation to discover the existence of an advanced alien civilization.
The construction of the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope, or FAST, has entered its final phase. With a dish the size of 30 football fields, FAST, which measures 500 meters in diameter, dwarfs Puerto Rico's 300-meter Arecibo Observatory. Under the regulation, FAST requires radio silence within a 10-kilometer radius.
The Chinese government hopes that a more subtle benefit of the behemoth eye on the cosmos will entice some of the some of the brightest minds in science or astronomy studying abroad to return home to China. China is the leading nation in the world in the number of students it sends students abroad, especially for majors such as science or engineering.
FAST is the world's largest single-aperture telescope, overtaking the Arecibo Observatory in the US territory of Puerto Rico, which is 305 meters (1000 feet) in diameter. The dish will have a perimeter of about 1.6 kilometers, Xinhua said, and there are no towns within five kilometers, giving it ideal surroundings to listen for signals from space.
According to chief scientist from China's National Astronomical Observations, Li Di, FAST will be able to scan up to twice more areas of the sky than Arecibo shown above, and it will have between three to five times the sensitivity. It's in their hopes that if there is indeed alien life, this gargantuan will find it.
The region's karst topography -- a landscape of porous rock fissured with deep crevasses and underground caves and streams -- is ideal for draining rainwater and protecting the reflector. Unfortuately, citizens actually living in the area where the radio telescope will be built are being relocated. Some 2,000 families residing near the Pingtang and Luodian counties will be given $1,800 per individual for the forced relocation.
For years Chinese scientists have relied on "second hand" data collected by others in their research and the new telescope is expected to "greatly enhance" the country's capacity to observe outer space, Xinhua said. Beijing is accelerating its military-run multi-billion-dollar space exploration program, which it sees as a symbol of the country's progress. It has plans for a permanent orbiting station by 2020 and eventually to send a human to the moon.
Construction on the telescope started in March 2011.
The Daily Galaxy via AFP/Beijing
On July 17, 2016, a huge stream of ice and rock tumbled down a narrow valley in the Aru Range of Tibet. When the ice stopped moving, it had spread a pile of debris that was up to 30 meters (98 feet) thick across 10 square kilometers (4 square miles). The massive debris field makes this one of the largest ice avalanches ever recorded. The only event of a comparable size was a 2002 avalanche from Kolka Glacier in in the Caucasus , explained Andreas Kääb, a glaciologist at the University of Oslo.
The cause of the avalanche is unclear. "This is new territory scientifically," said Kääb. "It is unknown why an entire glacier tongue would shear off like this. We would not have thought this was even possible before Kolka happened." Nine people, 350 sheep, and 110 yaks in the remote village of Dungru were killed during the avalanche.
Kääb's preliminary analysis of satellite imagery indicates that the glacier showed signs of change weeks before the avalanche happened. Normally, such signs would be clues the glacier might be in the process of surging, but surging glaciers typically flow at a fairly slow rate rather than collapsing violently in an avalanche.
After inspecting the satellite imagery, University of Arizona glaciologist Jeffrey Kargel agreed that a surging glacier could not be the cause. "The form is completely wrong," he said. "It must be a high-energy mass flow. Maybe liquid water lubrication at the base played some role," he said.
Tian Lide, a glaciologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, visited the site in August and described the avalanche as "baffling" because the area where the ice collapse began is rather flat. "We failed to reach the upper part of the glacier for safety reasons," he said in an email, "but we will go the upper part [later] to see if we can find some more hints about what caused the glacier disaster."
The Daily Galaxy via NASA
New research by the University of Surrey published today in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society has shone light on a globular cluster of stars that could host several hundred black holes, a phenomenon that until recently was thought impossible.
Globular clusters are spherical collections of stars which orbit around a galactic centre such as our Milky-way galaxy. Using advanced computer simulations, the team at the University of Surrey were able to see the un-see-able by mapping a globular cluster known as NGC 6101, from which the existence of black holes within the system was deduced.
These black holes are a few times larger than the Sun, and form in the gravitational collapse of massive stars at the end of their lives. It was previously thought that these black holes would almost all be expelled from their parent cluster due to the effects of supernova explosion, during the death of a star.
"Due to their nature, black holes are impossible to see with a telescope, because no photons can escape", explained lead author Miklos Peuten of the University of Surrey. "In order to find them we look for their gravitational effect on their surroundings. Using observations and simulations we are able to spot the distinctive clues to their whereabouts and therefore effectively 'see' the un-seeable".
It is only as recently as 2013 that astrophysicists found individual black holes in globular clusters via rare phenomena in which a companion star donates material to the black hole. This work, which was supported by the European Research Council (ERC), has shown that in NGC 6101 there could be several hundred black holes, overturning old theories as to how black holes form.
Co-author Professor Mark Gieles, University of Surrey continued, "Our work is intended to help answer fundamental questions related to dynamics of stars and black holes, and the recently observed gravitational waves. These are emitted when two black holes merge, and if our interpretation is right, the cores of some globular clusters may be where black hole mergers take place."
The researchers chose to map this particular ancient globular cluster due to its recently found distinctive makeup, which suggested that it could be different to other clusters. Compared to other globular clusters NGC 6101 appears dynamically young in contrast to the ages of the individual stars. Also the cluster appears inflated, with the core being under-populated by observable stars.
Using computer simulation, the team recreated every individual star and black hole in the cluster and their behavior. Over the whole lifetime of thirteen billion years the simulation demonstrated how NGC 6101 has evolved. It was possible to see the effects of large numbers of black holes on the visible stars, and to reproduce what was observed for NGC6101. From this, the researchers showed that the unexplainable dynamical apparent youth is an effect of the large black hole population.
"This research is exciting as we were able to theoretically observe the spectacle of an entire population of black holes using computer simulations. The results show that globular clusters like NGC 6101, which were always considered boring are in fact the most interesting ones, possibly each harboring hundreds of black holes. This will help us to find more black holes in other globular clusters in the Universe. " concluded Peuten.
The Daily Galaxy via University of Surrey
The translucent marble and glass cube-shaped Ronald O Perelman Performing Arts Center will open in 2020
A design of translucent marble and glass was unveiled yesterday for a long-stalled performing arts venue at the World Trade Center.
Singer Barbra Streisand is to serve as the chair of the board of the Ronald O Perelman Performing Arts Center, which will be dedicated to new works. The cube-shaped building would aim to commemorate the 9/11 tragedy and reflect the vitality of the city, board members said.
Related: New York's Oculus transit hub soars, but it's a phoenix with a price tag
Continue reading...The Palace of Westminster is an expensive ruin. The case for shifting at least some of our key institutions out of the capital could not be clearer
Anyone in their right mind would want to move out. Among other problems, the property has leaking roofs, hidden pockets of asbestos, clear fire risks, vulnerability to flooding, and mice. The annual repair bill runs to around £50m. It is also routinely overheated, chintzily furnished and home to an aroma that often suggests last week's school dinners. Small wonder that, since 2012, some of the Palace of Westminster's occupants have been loudly fretting about the place's upkeep.
Related: Cost of moving MPs out of parliament for repairs could exceed £4bn
I know: sketching this out in a political culture as cautious as ours threatens to take one close to La-La land
Related: PMQs verdict: has Theresa May got a new gag writer?
Continue reading...Artist David Shrigley has released a series of 30 designs for Danish retail chain, Flying Tiger Copenhagen.
Formerly known as Tiger, the brand commissioned Shrigley to design a number of products based on the theme of Strong Messages, featuring his trademark humorous drawings and messages.
The collection includes a set of drawing pencils covered in messages scrawled in Shrigley's own handwriting; including “words are boring”, “make art not friends” and “I'm illiterate”.
The words “Coloured pencils for making nice drawings of cats, flowers, etc.” feature on a specially designed pencil case that is also adorned with a drawing of a cat.
Phone and tablet cases include the instruction “kill the computer”, and other products such as shower curtains, trays, socks and bags are all adorned with artworks by Shrigley.
The artist has also released a miniature version of his Really Good statue, which is set to be unveiled at The Fourth Plinth in London later this month.
Concept developer at Flying Tiger Copenhagen, Mai Due Brinch, says: “We want to make art more accessible by making it a part of people's everyday life. Shrigley's works are humorous, dark, delightfully absurd and bizarre, and the emphasis is on the message rather than on technique.”
The post Tiger releases stationery range designed by David Shrigley appeared first on Design Week.
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My organization, Adventure Scientists, enlists the help of adventurers around the world to collect water samples for our Global Microplastics Initiative. This May, Microplastic Adventure Scientists Gerrit Egnew and Kirra Paulus embarked on a month-long expedition to sample and paddle 30 rivers in 30 days. Their resulting video and story are a call to action to paddlers everywhere to help protect the rivers that give them so much. Words by Gerrit Egnew.
30 Days 30 Rivers from Kirra Kirra on Vimeo.
George and I looked upstream at Skyscraper, a rapid halfway down South Silver Creek, in the mountains near Placerville, CA. Beneath us was an undercut cave; we had been there for a while, scouting and fretting and rationalizing. Kirra scrambled down to us and asked if we planned to run it. I looked at George: “I sure wish someone would come down from behind us and, like, run it. Or set safety. So that we know it's okay.”
Ten minutes later, as we walked back to our boats, a group of six Kiwis materialized from the white roar. “Want to set safety with us on the Teacups?” one asked. Providence.
Unfortunately, this close community is sometimes insular. (When your activity is the coolest ever, what else matters?) But there is such vivid, exultant energy in the kayaking community; how can it be directed to tangible issues? Kayakers are driven to explore, travel, and experience new rivers, but what do we do to help conserve them?
Adventure Scientists has a compelling solution. Gregg Treinish, founder of Adventure Scientists, realized that scientific research requires travel in extreme or inaccessible environments and training researchers to manage these situations safely is time-consuming and expensive. But there is already a group of people in these environments: outdoor sports enthusiasts. Particularly, kayakers travel worldwide to remote creeks and rivers. Adventure Scientists' Microplastics project organizes kayakers and other adventurers to take water samples wherever they may be in the world. Researchers can get much more data by partnering with people who already have the skills and motivation to get into the places being studied.
Kirra graduated in the spring, and I'm taking time off. We both river guide and had been planning a trip in May before rafting season started. Influenced by Adventure Scientists, that trip suddenly seemed like an opportunity to gather data for the Global Microplastics Initiative. We had a month. Well, we had to take finals in the first week of May. So, a month minus five days of caffeinated stress. That's kind of like thirty days. (Although May has thirty-one; I haven't taken calculus in a year.)
First, right before finals, we jetted to the Lochsa Rendezvous. Then after our last exam, Kirra and I got on the road. Over the next few weeks, in a haze of exhaustion, river noise, shuttle complications, and Cold Snacks, we kayaked and sampled the following rivers:
Joining us for various sections were George Milheim, Kathryn Egnew, Bridger Dunnagan, Mark Rockwell, Spencer Lawley, and Jessie Bohn. The trip was less about paddling stouts (although we scared ourselves more than once) and more about going to new places. We wanted to expand our experience of the river world and add to its scientific knowledge base. Adventure and science need not be mutually exclusive. Small groups of citizen scientists, operating in areas they know well, can do powerful work for environmental science. We've become activate and engaged in our community on a new level. You can too.
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-- 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.
-- 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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Firefly with a fiery sky.