Holy Shit! The Single Reason Republicans Have No Right To Exist Is Climate Denial On Behalf Of Energy

TED Grant Goes to Archaeologist Who Combats Looting With Satellite Technology

Her laptop brims with satellite images pitted with thousands of black dots, evidence of excavations across Egypt where looters have tunneled in search of mummies, jewelry and other valuables prized by collectors, advertised in auction catalogs and trafficked on eBay, a criminal global black market estimated in the billions of dollars.

“For the first time technology has gotten to the point where we can map looting,” said Sarah H. Parcak, a pioneering “space archaeologist,” founding director of the University of Alabama’s Laboratory for Global Observation in Birmingham and an associate professor there.

Satellite eyes in the sky, which have transformed the worldwide search for buried archaeological treasures, are now being used to spy on the archenemies of cultural preservation: armies of looters who are increasingly pockmarking ancient sites with illicit digs and making off with priceless patrimony. Read more.

Bicyclean, a senior thesis project by Rachel Field ‘12, helps recycle e-waste in developing nations by preventing exposure to toxic materials. The project recently won silver at the Acer Incredible Green Contest. Read how Rachel is designing a cleaner future.

Of the 24 MacArthur genius grant recipients, 11 of them were women. Here’s a look at who they are, what they do and why you should pay attention to them. 

MacArthur’s genius women (The Daily Beast) 

Did you know that 80% of all terrestrial plants and animals live in forests? That’s why the Global Goals for Sustainable Development, adopted at the United Nations in New York in September, seek to protect forests and biodiversity. Which Global Goal means the most to you? See the full list here: www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment

“We have an opportunity to re-think how we regulate city activities for the public interest. I think the big opportunity is to harness the data streaming out of all of these activities and use it to enable a more permissive, but more accountable, “2.0” regulatory regime.”

- Nick Grossman

By focusing on peer-to-peer urbanism, we would be able to create more functional and enjoyable communities while using less resources through sharing — both on and offline. By working collaboratively, there’s an opportunity to create solutions for the masses at a lower cost for the government, and therefore for tax payers. It’s problem solving by community.

Check out the interesting examples of user-generated urbanism, agile urbanism, and today’s peer-to-peer urbanism movement in Nick’s post. 

(via loyalcx)

Exxon Confirmed Global Warming Consensus in 1982 with In-House Climate Models

Steve Knisely was an intern at Exxon Research and Engineering in the summer of 1979 when a vice president asked him to analyze how global warming might affect fuel use. "I think this guy was looking for validation that the greenhouse effect should spur some investment in alternative energy that's not bad for the environment," Knisely, now 58 and a partner in a management consulting company, recalled in a recent interview. Knisely projected that unless fossil fuel use was constrained, there would be "noticeable temperature changes" and 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air by 2010, up from about 280 ppm before the Industrial Revolution. The summer intern's predictions turned out to be very close to the mark.

This is the third in a series of articles published by InsideClimate News disclosing that ExxonMobil was conducting an extensive internal research project internally to analyze the effect of carbon emissions on atmospheric CO2, global warming and climate change. It’s clear from the material described and presented in the article that ExxonMobil, within its science group and at the highest management levels, was aware of the risk of climate change from carbon emissions. Notwithstanding that knowledge, ExxonMobil decided to protect its business model and go down the denial path.

What’s amazing is how accurate the ExxonMobil scientists were in their projections of the concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere and the effect those levels of concentration would have on global warming.

Here’s an example of an internal memorandum. An explanation of this memo, including more on its contents, the context in which it was written and delivered and the identities of the author and addressee, are included in the article.

A timeline of ExxonMobil’s research and external outreach efforts on the climate change issue. If the text is too tiny or blurred, a better copy, which you can enlarge, is included in the article.

Brain, Bone and Blood Vessels Coming Hot Off the Press

Could the days of custom clavicles and bespoke bladders produced just in the knick of time for suffering patients be around the corner?

While keeping an eye on tissue engineering studies, we’ve been seeing some significant wins in the lab that are bringing the sci-fi future of on-demand 3-D printed organs, bone and blood vessels closer. 

Harvard and Brown bioengineers are taking their own routes to build complex tissues in customized 3-D printers. And just the other week, we reported on newly unveiled work at the University of Florida to print complex soft structures in baths that could one day birth replacement human parts along with soft robots.

Now, Carnegie Mellon engineers reported on Friday that they had successfully printed simplified proof-of-concept anatomical structures like mini femurs, blood vessels and brains suspended in soft gelatin. Learn more and see a video below.

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