Archive for the ‘environmental’ category: Page 14
Feb 25, 2016
“The limits to growth”, a prescient classic according to Nature | The Club of Rome
Posted by Odette Bohr Dienel in categories: environmental, sustainability
“While Nations gathered in Paris to negotiate an international agreement to limit greenhouse-gas emissions, Nature published a special issue “Paris Climate Talk” to cover the run-up to COP21. For this issue, Nature asked Adam Rome, environmental historian at the University of Delaware in Newark, to revisit the classics that first made sustainability a public issue in the 1960s and 1970s.”
Feb 24, 2016
What has changed since “Pale Blue Dot”?
Posted by Philip Raymond in categories: astronomy, cosmology, environmental, ethics, habitats, lifeboat, science, space, space travel, sustainability
I am not an astronomer or astrophysicist. I have never worked for NASA or JPL. But, during my graduate year at Cornell University, I was short on cross-discipline credits, and so I signed up for Carl Sagan’s popular introductory course, Astronomy 101. I was also an amateur photographer, occasionally freelancing for local media—and so the photos shown here, are my own.
By the end of the 70’s, Sagan’s star was high and continuing to rise. He was a staple on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, producer and host of the PBS TV series, Cosmos, and he had just written Dragons of Eden, which won him a Pulitzer Prize. He also wrote Contact, which became a blockbuster movie, starring Jodie Foster.
Sagan died in 1996, after three bone marrow transplants to compensate for an inability to produce blood cells. Two years earlier, Sagan wrote a book and narrated a film based on a photo taken from space.
Continue reading “What has changed since ‘Pale Blue Dot’?” »
Feb 8, 2016
A New AI Estimates Pollution From Crowdsourced Images
Posted by Sean Brazell in categories: environmental, information science, mobile phones, robotics/AI
Around the world, cities are choking on smog. But a new AI system plans to analyze just how bad the situation is by aggregating data from smartphone pictures captured far and wide across cities.
The project, called AirTick, has been developed by researchers from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, reports New Scientist. The reasoning is pretty simple: Deploying air sensors isn’t cheap and takes a long time, so why not make use of the sensors that everyone has in their pocket?
The result is an app which allows people to report smog levels by uploading an image tagged with time and location. Then, a machine learning algorithm chews through the data and compares it against official air-quality measurements where it can. Over time, the team hopes the software will slowly be able to predict air quality from smartphone images alone.
Jan 31, 2016
Smog is wreaking havoc — so why are cancer deaths plunging in China?
Posted by Karen Hurst in categories: biotech/medical, environmental
Jan 21, 2016
Expansive New Geometric Drawings Trampled in Snow and Sand by Simon Beck — By Christopher Jobson | Colossal
Posted by Odette Bohr Dienel in categories: environmental, media & arts
“[A]rtist Simon Beck (previously) trudges across sand or through knee-high snow to create massive geometric drawings left behind in his footprints. From sandy expanses on the shore of New Zealand to frigid outlooks in the Swiss Alps, any pristine surface that stretches for hundreds of meters can work as a suitable canvas for Beck’s designs.”
Tags: Geometry, Mathematics
Jan 10, 2016
Mars Utopia towers to terraform red planet into breathable environment
Posted by Klaus Baldauf in categories: engineering, environmental, space
**Spanish architect Alberto Villanueva’s Mars Utopia concept would see the planet transformed into an inhabitable environment using towers formed by bacteria**
Villanueva, who works at Idea Architecture Office, created the project while completing a masters in Environment Design at London’s Ravensbourne College. “As an architect I am worried about the overpopulation issue”. “I was studying how the most populated cities around the world are growing non-stop. At the same time I realised that at least 30 per cent of territories are in extreme environments and I wanted to understand how, with my responsibility as an architect, I could think in new ways to build in these areas,” he added.
Continue reading “Mars Utopia towers to terraform red planet into breathable environment” »
Jan 1, 2016
Seeing daylight | The Economist
Posted by Odette Bohr Dienel in categories: environmental, governance
Dec 3, 2015
Elon Musk: Only a Carbon Tax Will Accelerate the World’s Exit from Fossil Fuels — By Kirsten Korosec | Fortune
Posted by Odette Bohr Dienel in categories: Elon Musk, environmental
“[O]nly a carbon tax—not innovation, conservation, or renewable energy—will accelerate the transition from carbon-producing fossil fuels to sustainable energy.”
Tags: Carbon Tax, COP21, United Nations