How hilarious would it be if you lived in Northern California and only ate “natural”, organic produce because of fears over genetically modified organisms or pesticides but weren’t aware that the marijuana you smoked is grown using an insecticide that is lethal to humans in small doses, requires a special permit from the EPA and is banned in other countries?
Answer: Not very hilarious.
After seeing links to it over and over on my dash, I had to see what the fuss was all about. And - WOW - what an incredible “gigapan” image of Mt. Everest. The image is 2 gigapixels, which is huge. I picked out a few interesting ones, including a cave, weird geology, a peak, and tents.
My colleague Prof. Brian Helmuth of USC and I tried out his gigapan equipment this past summer in the Netherlands, but alas, we kept running out of time. You can see some of his gigapans of ocean/shore ecosystems, here.
A Gigapan system is really a simple robot on a tripod that you mount your camera on to. It’s not difficult, but does take a lot of time to set up. The robot pivots up and down, taking several pictures in sequence. Once it’s finished, software stitches the photographs together. Anyone can do it. You can see bigger(!) gigapan pictures of Paris, Dubai, Machu Picchu, etc., here.
This picture of Mt. Everest is part of climate research project, documenting the effects of climate change on the mountain. From The Guardian:
Filmmaker and climate-change campaigner David Breashears spent this spring taking around 400 images of Everest and its near neighbours from a vantage point above base camp through a 300mm lens. Now he’s released them digitally stitched together to form one image – click here to see the full image.
The result is a stunning panoramic photograph of the Everest region – with a twist. You can zoom in on specific areas and see the roof of the world in extraordinary detail. From a distance small colourful dots mark the location of base camp. Zooming in, you can pick out each tent clearly – and a man bending down as he washes his face.
The high definition also allows viewers to examine the mountain’s icefall – and even pick out climbers descending between terrifying ice cliffs and crevasses. Think of it as an extreme, alpine version of Where’s Wally.
Breashears, who turns 57 tomorrow, set up GlacierWorks (glacierworks.org) five years ago to produce imagery highlighting the impact of climate change in the Himalayas. He knows Everest well, having directed the hit IMAX film about the peak and reached the summit himself five times.
But even he finds himself poring over his creation with renewed interest. “I find things I’ve never noticed before, especially on how climate change is affecting the mountain.”
By comparing his panorama with photographs from the 1950s, Breashears has been able to pinpoint just how much ice is gone from the mountain: “There are 49,000 glaciers in the Himalayas and most are showing a dramatic and accelerated melt rate.”
Via The Guardian
UC Berkeley Botanical Garden art work attracts right-wing attacks
“The right-wing attacks focused on the use of materials from Solyndra to create an artwork, leading the House committee, for example, to claim that SOL Grotto had become the world’s most expensive work of art. Greg Gutfeld on Fox News — a Cal grad — sputtered with rage at the art: “Our loss is someone else’s hip, pretentious art.” He suggested someone should take a sledgehammer to the work and call it performance art, before adding, “I’m kidding, of course that would be wrong.”
“We were totally taken by surprise,” said Paul Licht, Director of the Botanical Garden. “We weren’t making any political statements. It’s an attempt to create news.”
Beyond the ‘OMG’ Reaction to GMOs
A rap exploring the pros and cons of GMOs when it comes to feeding a growing planet! This comes from David Holmes, a grad of NYU’s Studio 20 digital journalism program, the same folks behind “My Water’s On Fire: The Fracking Song”.
We’ve got legal concerns, and some unknown effects, but we gotta weigh the impacts so we can come correct.
That little flow was mine. I’m a natural.
(via NY Times)
Joe’s a natural with a flow, and we seem to be naturals when it comes to modifying our foods. As UC Berkeley professor Michael Eisen notes, “Far from being natural, the transformation of wild plants and animals into the foods we eat today is – by far – the single most dramatic experiment in genetic engineering the human species has undertaken.” [Eisen blog] Explore the link for some food for thought.
The rap itself is interesting, it could use some more bass but it’s still better than anything put out by the rapper RiFF RaFF.
![The collapse of the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant caused a massive release of radioactive materials to the environment. A prompt and reliable system for evaluating the biological impacts of this accident on animals has not been available. Here we show that the accident caused physiological and genetic damage to the pale grass blue Zizeeria maha, a common lycaenid butterfly in Japan. We collected the first-voltine adults in the Fukushima area in May 2011, some of which showed relatively mild abnormalities. The F1 offspring from the first-voltine females showed more severe abnormalities, which were inherited by the F2 generation. Adult butterflies collected in September 2011 showed more severe abnormalities than those collected in May. Similar abnormalities were experimentally reproduced in individuals from a non-contaminated area by external and internal low-dose exposures. We conclude that artificial radionuclides from the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant caused physiological and genetic damage to this species.
The biological impacts of the Fukushima nuclear accident on the pale grass blue butterfly [Nature Scientific Reports] [neurosciencestuff]
I’m reminded of the wise words of Dr. Ian Malcolm, “… life, uh… finds a way.”](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8q2p1xTce1rog5d1o1_1280.jpg)
The collapse of the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant caused a massive release of radioactive materials to the environment. A prompt and reliable system for evaluating the biological impacts of this accident on animals has not been available. Here we show that the accident caused physiological and genetic damage to the pale grass blue Zizeeria maha, a common lycaenid butterfly in Japan. We collected the first-voltine adults in the Fukushima area in May 2011, some of which showed relatively mild abnormalities. The F1 offspring from the first-voltine females showed more severe abnormalities, which were inherited by the F2 generation. Adult butterflies collected in September 2011 showed more severe abnormalities than those collected in May. Similar abnormalities were experimentally reproduced in individuals from a non-contaminated area by external and internal low-dose exposures. We conclude that artificial radionuclides from the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant caused physiological and genetic damage to this species.
The biological impacts of the Fukushima nuclear accident on the pale grass blue butterfly [Nature Scientific Reports] [neurosciencestuff]
I’m reminded of the wise words of Dr. Ian Malcolm, “… life, uh… finds a way.”
Smog: The Original Instragram. In the 1970s, when the Clean Air Act (signed by Nixon in 1970) was just getting on a roll, the nascent EPA commissioned a series of photographs for the Documerica project to record pollution in America. They’re still pretty compelling; check out the rest here.
Smog: The Original Instagram, I laughed but then I cried.
David Attenborough on the U.S. censorship of the Discovery Chanel’s episode on climate change. More at io9 (via climateadaptation)
Meanwhile The New York Times reserved this nugget of wisdom at the end of an editorial in September, “a rapid reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is tragically unlikely. We are holding the future of every species on this planet — including ourselves — hostage.” If we gave enough airtime as a society to the controversy surrounding President Obama’s birth certificate, I think we can let this one slide or at least let the program speak for itself. What’s the worse that can happen?
(Source: The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World)
The Times Atlas has made it official: Greenland’s ice loss is permanent, and they have had to re-draw it in their latest edition. To the left, above, you have the nation as it appeared in the 1999 edition; to the right, a greener Greenland from the 2011 edition. Times Atlas say the fact that they have had to erase the ice “is concrete evidence of how climate change is altering the face of the planet forever”. We’re not sure the Times illustration is the final evidence, but they’ve certainly illustrated real trends. The demise of the ice sheet is revealing new worlds: Uunartoq Qeqertoq - which translates to ‘Warming Island’ – makes its first appearance in this edition, of the nation’s east coast.
My quick thoughts: Maps are a liberal media conspiracy.
