Sylvia Davat states that the pandemic has revealed that the food system that we currently have is "incredibly fragile and unsustainable." Thus, she believes that decentralizing that system is the solution. Not only does a local food system help local farmers; it also is environment-friendly.
"The food is healthier. The livelihoods are healthier. We know who's growing our food. There's nothing to not like about it," says Davat.
Davat expresses her belief in self-sufficiency through her wheat berry salad, which is made mostly of products local to her.
Turkey — A foul mucus has blanketed the Sea of Marmara, a body of water that connects the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea in the Mediterranean. This has been the situation in Turkey for months, and it has heavily affected the fishing industry of the country. The said mucus is also threatening the shellfish in the area. The Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoǧan describes this as a “mucilage calamity”, but this might be something worse.
The slime is, in short, a national crisis. Turkey is now trying to vacuum up its embarrassment of sea snot, dispatching workers with hoses to collect mucus by the tons for incineration. But scientists say that much more is probably lurking under the water. And even worse, the floating mucus is a sign of much larger disruptions in the sea. As unsightly as sea snot might be, its most devastating effects happen far away from human eyes, deep below the surface.
Slime in the sea is not inherently unusual. “Mucus is everywhere,” says Michael Stachowitsch, a marine ecologist at the University of Vienna. “There’s no marine organism that doesn’t produce mucus, from the lowly snail to the slimy fish.” But in healthy waters, mucus doesn’t amass to epic proportions. The current sea-snot outbreak can be blamed on phytoplankton, a type of algae that produces the small bits of mucus that turn into flakes of marine snow. When these phytoplankton receive an infusion of imbalanced nutrients from fertilizer runoff or untreated wastewater, they make an overabundance of mucus. Beads of that mucus accumulate into stringers, which accumulate into clouds, which accumulate into the unending sheets now washing up on Turkey’s coast.
Vacuuming up the mucus on the surface probably isn’t enough to solve Turkey’s sea snot problem.
Head over at The Atlantic for more details about this story.
Jessica Lauser was born blind. Suffering from retinopathy due to being born four months prematurely, Lauser’s one eye is completely blind, and the other eye only has 20/480 eyesight, which means that she has very little to no depth perception.
Lauser knew that she would be bullied because of her poor eyesight, so she looked for a way to silence the bullies, and she found that way when she was seven years old. That way was through chess.
"I knew that the kids were going to call me 'four eyes,' and I said, 'Hey, maybe if I beat them, then they will finally shut up,'" Lauser said.
It became more than a way of silencing the bullies.
"When I saw that a child could beat an adult in this game, (I knew) there was obviously something special and different about this chess. It meant that it wasn't something that depended on the fact that somebody was stronger than someone else or that they had to see like everyone else. There was something special about (the game) that made me want to learn more."
As an adult, she found comfort in playing chess on the streets of Washington, DC, San Francisco and San Jose.
Today, Jessica Lauser has dozens of major accolades in chess. She is a three-time US blind chess champion. Lauser aims to be a chess master in the future.
Astronauts cannot wash their clothes in space because there is no gravity in that place. And so they just throw away their clothes when they are done with it, and they let it burn up in the atmosphere with the discarded cargo.
Space station astronauts exercise two hours every day to counter the muscle- and bone-withering effects of weightlessness, quickly leaving their workout clothes sweaty, smelly and stiff. Their T-shirts, shorts and socks end up so foul that they run through a pair every week, according to Leland Melvin, a former NASA astronaut and NFL player.
“After that, they’re deemed toxic,” said Melvin, who’s serving as a spokesman for the project. “They like have a life of their own. They’re so stiff from all that sweat.”
For this reason, NASA has partnered with P&G, and the latter will send up some detergent that is said to be “custom-made for space” at the end of this year. The enzymes and the other ingredients will then be observed for six months. Stain-removal pens and wipes will also be sent up in May next year.
“The best solutions come from the most diverse teams,” Melvin said, “and how more diverse can you be than Tide and NASA?”
Physical health is a top priority among athletes. Typically, if you’re physically healthy, you’ll perform well in the game. The opposite goes when you’re not in a good state. This is the reason why Dr. Ian McKeown, Head of High Performance at the Port Adelaide Football Club (PAFC), is “always on the lookout for research projects that might give his players an advantage, either now or down the track.” His passion for his team led him to a sports medicine conference years ago, where he met Professor Mark Hutchinson, who mentioned to him the blood biomarker research of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics (CNBP). A partnership between PAFC and CNBP would soon be formed for a study.
The results suggest that not only can these blood markers show how a player is currently performing, but they can also predict how players will perform, with nine markers taken pre-training correlating with cognitive performance tests done after the completion of training. “The morning sample we took was almost predictive of the day, which is almost like saying, ‘Am I going to have a good day or not today?’” Hutchinson says. “Milliseconds can be the difference between taking a mark, making the kick or making a good decision on a battlefield.”
[...]
McKeown says the results were “pretty damn cool. It’s early in the process but it’s very exciting stuff.”
Learn more details about this potential game-changer over at Cosmos Magazine.
The French term déjà vu, which means “already seen” in English, was coined by the French philosopher and parapsychologist Émile Boirac in 1876. But even before there was a term for this phenomenon, it was pretty much experienced by people since the time of Plato. But what really is deja vu? Unfortunately, very little is known about it, and it wasn’t until 2003 when psychologist Alan Brown presented a paper about déjà vu that scientists took the phenomenon seriously. It was thanks to Brown that the study of déjà vu is now in mainstream science.
Over the years, studies about this human experience have led to many theories. There’s a theory that déjà vu is a memory problem. There’s also another that states that it could be mini seizures. But there is still no conclusive evidence as to what causes this experience. More studies about this event still need to be conducted.
It is only logical to expect that the gas giants in our Solar System would be in an icy state. After all, they are really far from the Sun, with Jupiter being over 754 million kilometers away from the Sun, about five times the distance of the Earth from the said ball of hot gas. And so it was to the surprise of many when NASA’s Voyager spacecraft sailed past these planets and found out that these 4 planets were scorching hot. It was…
a revelation as jarring as finding a bonfire inside your freezer.
Follow-up observations by ground-based telescopes and the Galileo and Cassini spacecraft demonstrated that their planet-wide fevers have persisted through time. Their planetary pyrexias are acute: Jupiter’s lower latitudes, for example, should be a frigid −110 degrees Celsius. Instead, the atmosphere there cooks at 325 degrees. What incognito incinerator is behind this? And how is this unknown heat source warming not just a single spot on the planet, but the entire upper atmosphere?
Finally, after 50 years of looking for answers, scientists have finally found the cause of this puzzling phenomenon: the respective auroras of the planets.
Brendan Leonard has a smartphone that converts usual measurement units into measurement units that are used in other situations. Who in the world would think about how many metric teaspoons it would take before a water bottle is full? Certainly not me. But what was Leonard’s purpose in doing such a thing? He writes this on his article over at Outside Online:
This app got me thinking about how contrived all of our units of measurement are, but how they seem to make sense when we apply them to the correct things. Like I always think of backpacks in terms of how many liters they can hold, because I can easily visualize what a Nalgene water bottle looks like, and I can visualize 40 or 60 water bottles fitting in a backpack.
It’s not only your fitness that you should be worried about this summer season. Your cat probably gained weight, too, in the past months, so you should worry about it as well. The question is, how do you make your chonky cat fit again? Meowingtons gives us some tips and tricks. Here is one of them:
Get Walkin'!
This suggestion will take some work, but it’s worth it. A safe walk outside with you by your cat's side can open up new worlds for your cat without all of the dangers the outside can provide. First, find a harness that fits properly (one that your cat can't easily wriggle out of). There should be at least one fingerwidth of room between the harness and the cat.
Since the 16th century, scientists have already been studying the thale cress. Today, centuries later, the thale cress still manages to surprise these men and women of science. Scientists have discovered a new plant organ thanks to this humble weed that molecular biologist Tim Gookin describes as “the fruit fly of the plant world.”
This wonky-looking plant part is similar to the cantilever beams that buttress the underside of bridges, and is called the “cantil.” The newly discovered part juts out from the stem and connects to the flower-bearing arm of the plant, which is known as the pedicel. Thale cress cantils give the plant the appearance of bent elbows; cantil-less plants seem to have only straight arms. Cantils are neither part of the stem nor the pedicel. They’re an entirely new organ, says Gookin.
How did scientists miss an entire plant body part all this while?
One reason, Gookin concluded, is that cantils only form when the thale cress delays its flowering, usually during spring when daylight is limited. In this season, the thale cress transitions more slowly from the leaf-production phase to the reproductive flowering stage, compared to during the sunshine-filled summer. At this decelerated pace, the cantil slowly manifests at the cusp of flowering, right after the flower-tipped pedicel makes its debut. If the plant only experiences seasons with long hours of sunshine, the cantil will never make an appearance. Researchers often grow the thale cress under long-daylight conditions so as to accelerate to the seed-production stage, not giving time for the cantil to develop.
August 4, 1972. The naval mines that the United States had planted in the sea off the port of Haiphong, Vietnam, remained undisturbed. The mines were designed to be sensitive to changes in the magnetic field brought by the presence of large iron objects, like the hull of a ship. On this day, the sea was clear, but something unexpected happened; the sea mines went off simultaneously. What could have triggered the explosions? This phenomenon remained a mystery for the public, as this case was classified by the US Navy. Now, the case is declassified, and a group of civilian researchers have finally solved it. The cause was apparently a very powerful solar storm.
Solar storms caused by coronal mass ejections are known to interfere with electrical and electronic devices here on earth. Solar storms have fried satellites, blacked-out electrical grids, and disrupted navigation and communications systems. The solar storm of August 1972 was a Carrington-class storm, meaning it may have been similar to the strongest storm on record, the Carrington Event of 1859.
“This is a Carrington-class storm that has gone under the radar,” said Delores Knipp, one of the research professor at the University of Colorado Boulder who led the study. “What I am asking scientists to do is go back and reinvestigate with new eyes.”
The huge cloud of charged particles ejected by the sun reached earth after only 14.6 hours, the fastest a solar storm have ever travelled. Such an event usually takes two to three days to reach earth. Once it slammed into the atmosphere, it caused blackouts on radio frequency bands, and produced significant electrical grid disturbances throughout Canada and across much of eastern and central United States. In the South China Sea, off the east coast of North Vietnam, it triggered some 20 to 30 naval mines within a period of just 30 seconds. Another 25 to 30 patches of muddy water were also observed, indicative of further explosions.
This is currently the lightest sound insulation material ever manufactured. This material, as demonstrated by researchers at the University of Bath, could reduce noise by up to 16 decibels, and it only weighs 2.1kg per cubic meter (or about 0.13 lb per cubic foot). Compared to conventional polyester urethane sound-absorbing foams, like the Kinetics KUA, which weighs 32 kg per cubic meter (or 2lbs per cubic foot), this new graphene-based material only has one-fifteenth of that weight.
“This is clearly a very exciting material that could be applied in a number of ways – initially in aerospace but potentially in many other fields such as automotive and marine transport, as well as in building and construction," says Professor Michele Meo, who led the research. "We managed to produce such an extremely low density by using a liquid combination of graphene oxide and a polymer, which are formed with whipped air bubbles and freeze-casted. On a very basic level, the technique can be compared with whipping egg whites to create meringues – it’s solid but contains a lot of air, so there is no weight or efficiency penalty to achieve big improvements in comfort and noise.”
In their paper, the researchers say they believe the aerogel will have other useful properties, including fire resistance and electromagnetic shielding, and there's also the potential to develop it further to optimize its heat dissipation capabilities, which would be very handy in engine insulation. The team says it could be commercialized and in use within 18 months.
Laura Gaither immediately removed the tiny black bugs that she felt biting her legs one afternoon at the Panama City Beach, three years ago. The local residents told her that they were probably sand flies. It wasn’t only Gaither who was bitten by these bugs; three of her children were bitten too. But since the bite marks only looked like something from ants or mosquitoes, she did not worry, as marks usually subside within a week. She was wrong to assume that, unfortunately. A couple weeks later, Gaither noticed the bites had turned into small open wounds.
They worsened over the next couple of weeks, but when she took her children to their pediatrician, “he just chalked it up to eczema,” Gaither said. Eventually Gaither took her young daughter, whose condition was the most concerning, to the emergency room at Children’s of Alabama, where she was tested for fungal and bacterial infections. The results came back negative, and the anti-fungal and steroid topical creams the doctors prescribed proved ineffective. Meanwhile, the ulcers kept growing larger and more painful.
This prompted Gaither to research what kind of disease struck her and her family, and she found out about the skin-disease called leishmaniasis. When she found photos of wounds caused by this disease, she found it similar to what she herself had at the time (Please don’t search it if you’re currently eating as you’re reading this). Unfortunately, the doctors dismissed the possibility of her contracting that disease, and it wasn’t until her knee wound worsened that she was able to convince her own physician to conduct a biopsy for leishmaniasis. The results were inconclusive, but fortunately, the wounds on her children were healed, and the ulcers cleared up, months after.
This is just one of many stories about people contracting leishmaniasis in the U.S., and scientists say that this is just the beginning.
Americans, it turns out, can be exposed to Leishmania parasites without leaving the country. The parasites are currently endemic in Texas and Oklahoma, and new studies suggest that they might be present in other states, including Florida. While reported cases of leishmaniasis contracted in the U.S. are currently negligible, they may soon be on the rise: As climate change pushes rodent and sand fly habitat northward, scientists caution that in the future, an increasing number of U.S. residents could be exposed to different varieties of the flesh-eating parasite.
Some strains of Leishmania parasites can be life-threatening. The one currently present in the U.S., Leishmania mexicana, induces milder symptoms and over time, can heal on its own. But if doctors fail to recognize it, or overreact to it, damages caused by wrong therapies and unnecessary toxic systemic medication can cause more harm than the disease itself.
Bridget McIlwee, an Illinois-based dermatologist, has treated patients who contracted leishmaniasis in Texas. She wants her colleagues to be more aware of the parasite’s expansion into the U.S. “It’s a pretty striking difference for a disease that we used to think of as limited to South America now extending as far north as Canada,” she said, “potentially within the next several decades.”
Chess is now seen today as a game that you play either casually or competitively. But in early modern Europe, chess was seen as something beyond just a game. In her journal article published at JSTOR, historian Susan Broomhall writes that the game “provided important political training about statecraft, social hierarchies, and warfare.” Women with political ambition, such as Anne of Brittany and Margaret of Austria, saw chess as an activity where they could show their political abilities. Along with the figures mentioned before is Catherine de Medici’, an Italian noblewoman who became the queen consort of France decades after Anne. Not only did she use chess and other recreational activities to prove her abilities; she also used it to elevate the status of women.
Catherine was good at the game. According to one report, Paolo Boi, known as one of the greatest chess players in the sixteenth century, expressed a desire to play against her. But her aim with chess wasn’t just proving her strategic skill. She promoted the playing of all kinds of games in the royal court. In a letter to her son Charles IX, she wrote, “I heard it said by the king, your grandfather, that two things were needed to live in peace with the French and have them love their king: to keep them happy and to keep them busy at something.”
Broomhall writes that another part of her strategy had to do with the status of women within the court. She had appointed noblewomen to a number of prominent positions, prompting some critics to dismiss the powerful women as the queen’s “stable of whores.” Game playing let women interact with men in a context where their social status outside the game was moot (at least theoretically) and their ability could shine.
“The complex intellectual and orderly strategic movements of chess offered a controlled and rational form of courtly play for women in a mixed-sex environment,” Broomhall writes.
Airspeeder’s Alauda Mk3, the electric flying racecar of the aforementioned company, just had its first unpiloted test flights in Southern Australia. The said test was a success, according to the company. For the company, this means that the uncrewed electric flying car Grand Prix will be held this year.
According to Airspeeder (pdf), the unpiloted Mk3 weighs 130 kilograms (about 286 pounds), can go from zero to 62 mph in 2.8 seconds, and climb to 500 meters. It has a removable battery, which its pit crews have been able to replace in under 20 seconds. It can fly for 10 to 15 minutes on one battery pack, the company says, and it’s equipped with lidar and radar to create a “virtual forcefield” to help prevent collisions.
Airspeeder says its initial EXA Series races, which it’s planning for later this year, will include up to four teams with two remote pilots per team.
