Snapzu Earth: March 2015

Tuesday 31 March 2015

Ants in space grapple well with zero-g

A study finds that ants on board the International Space Station still use teamwork to search new areas, despite falling off the walls of their containers for up to eight seconds.

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Can Weather Data Alter Business Decisions? IBM Thinks So

IBM’s ongoing reorganization has birthed a new Internet of Things division, in which the giant tech company will invest $3 billion over the next four years. The unit’s first big move: an alliance with The Weather Company. The partnership will focus first on data services for retailers, insurance companies and utilities.

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It hit 63 degrees in Antarctica on Tuesday

Antarctica may have experienced its warmest day ever recorded on Tuesday, with the temperature reading of 63.5°F, reports The Weather Underground. Tuesday's record high temperature follows another high reading of 63.3°F set just the day before. Until this week's heat wave, the highest-known recorded temperature on the continent was 62.6°F back in 1976.

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How do geckos defy gravity?

Geckos aren’t covered in adhesives or hooks or suction cups, and yet they can effortlessly scale vertical walls and hang from ceilings. What’s going on? Eleanor Nelsen explains how geckos’ phenomenal feet allow them to defy gravity.

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Common bacteria on verge of becoming antibiotic-resistant superbugs

Antibiotic resistance is poised to spread globally among bacteria frequently implicated in respiratory and urinary infections in hospital settings, according to new research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The study shows that two genes that confer resistance against a particularly strong class of antibiotics can be shared easily among a family of bacteria responsible for a significant portion of hospital-associated infections.

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Minimal Maps

Minimal Maps is an ongoing project that explores how richly-detailed single subject maps can give us new imagery to understand our landscape. The data is accurate for the year 2014 and explores the American (lower 48 states) landscape as a whole entity. The project is a continuation of the work began in 2012 while at Archework's Chicago Expander Workshops, where I was a research fellow.

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Ancient egyptian beer making vessels discovered in Israel

The pottery shards (pictured), found in Tel Aviv, come from large ceramic basins, which were used to prepare fruity beer that was left to ferment under the sun.

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10 Ways Our Minds Warp Time

How time perception is warped by life-threatening situations, eye movements, tiredness, hypnosis, age, the emotions and more...

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Extraordinary Toroidal Vortices (ring-shaped bubbles) made by dolphins and whales.

It's fascinating to me to see these animals create these almost magical toys to play with.

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Monday 30 March 2015

The Dark Underworld of the Paris Catacombs

Paris, the capital of France, is often called La Ville Lumière (meaning ‘The City of Light’), however, beneath this bustling European city of 12 million people, lies a dark subterranean world holding the remains of 6 million of its former inhabitants. These are the Paris Catacombs: a network of old caves, quarries and tunnels stretching hundreds of miles, and seemingly lined with the bones of the dead.

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Caught on Camera

A camera trap near Yellowstone National Park catches a grizzly bear stealing whitebark pine nuts from a squirrel’s cache. The nuts are an important food for the bears, a threatened species.

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Keeping Australian native animals as pets is a good idea – Opinion – ABC Environment (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Yesterday David Leyonhjelm suggested keeping Australian native animals as pets to stave off extinction. It's an idea Mike Archer has been advocating for years.

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Where Are London's Missing Map Traps?

No online map is as beautiful, or feels as canonical, as the ones between the covers of the London A-Z. But the Guide to all of Londo is not flawless. Even more shockingly, its imperfections are deliberate. The London A-Z contains so-called map traps: non-existent features inserted into the map to catch out unauthorised copiers of the original.

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'Punk Rocker Frog' Has Shape-Shifting Spikes and Teen Angst

The punk rocker frog changes the texture of its skin to better blend in with its surroundings, which is very weird for a vertebrate.

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U.S. Will Allow Hunters to Bring Home Rhino Trophies

Two American hunters are one big step closer to legally killing a pair of black rhinos in Namibia and bringing their body parts home as trophies. On Thursday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced online that it was approving the hunters' requests to import trophies from two upcoming hunts sanctioned by the Namibian government. After sifting through thousands of citizen comments over the past several months, the U.S. federal agency defended its decision by saying the hunts...

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Magnitude 7.7 earthquake strikes near Papua New Guinea

A magnitude 7.7 earthquake strikes off Papua New Guinea with the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre warning hazardous waves are possible.

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Sunday 29 March 2015

Gardening in the Digital Age: A Meditation

The ground is frozen and snow swirls, but inside my suburban Tennessee home, tax preparation again loses to garden planning. Vegetable seeds, starter trays, and a planting calendar cover my kitchen table. From the south-facing window, my tomato seedlings and I will soon scan the backyard for signs of spring. In the meantime I set to work sowing virtual seeds on my laptop.

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The myth of Europe’s Little Ice Age

The Little Ice Age is generally seen as a major event in European history. Analysing a variety of recent weather reconstructions, this column finds that European weather appears constant from the Middle Ages until 1900, and that events like the freezing of the Thames and the disappearance of English vineyards have simpler explanations than changing climate. It appears instead that the European Little Ice Age is a statistical artefact...

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A Snowboarder's Unbelievable Tiny House

Pro-snowboarder, Mike Basich, tours his self-built 225 square foot home in the middle of his 40 acre snow covered property near Truckee, CA - and shows how being close to nature drives his most creative decisions. In Going Off Grid, Laura Ling examines how 180,000 Americans a year are choosing to live entirely disconnected from our modern internet-focused world in pursuit of a more sustainable, simple lifestyle.

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Dirt Cheap DIY: How to Repurpose an Altoids Tin to Make a Solar Powered USB Charger

We all want to be greener and more environmentally friendly in our daily lives. We all probably have a mobile device basically attached to us too. For those of us who like to be active in helping mother nature out, this is a great repurposed trash do it yourself idea...

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The Core

You can also follow my work on Facebook - Tashina van Zwam Photography Or go to my website http://ift.tt/1OL4m7m

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Turtles and Tortoises: 5 You Should Never Keep as Pets

So as not to alienate the many hardcore, dedicated turtle keepers among my readers, I’ll start off by qualifying the title. I know people who do quite well with 4 of the 5 species discussed in this article. But in addition to being very well-experienced, these folks have both the financial means and space to meet the challenges posed by these unique creatures.

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Invisible Solar Cells That Could Power Skyscrapers

Silicon Valley startup Ubiquitous Energy is making the world’s first transparent solar cells, a technology that could greatly expand the reach of solar power. Their technology is an invisible film that can go on any surface and generate power, which could lead to cell phones and tablets that never run out of batteries — or skyscrapers that can use their massive banks of windows as solar panels. Bloomberg's Sam Grobart reports.

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Ribes sanguineum var. glutinosum

We know that spring has arrived, because the red flowering currant (Ribes sanguineum) is blooming. Welcome to the world of phenology, where seasonal changes in the natural world occur in a fairly reliable sequence. By paying attention to these changes, we can learn more about climate change, and also match our actions to natural patterns.

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Earth hour: Millions will Switch Off Lights Around the World for Climate Action

Annual switching off of lights in homes, businesses and landmarks on Saturday evening holds extra significance ahead of this year’s climate talks in Paris, says the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon.

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This 19th Century 'Stench Map' Shows How Smells Reshaped New York City

During the 19th century, it was widely believed that bad smells carried diseases. In the 1870s, the New York City Metropolitan Board of Health created the "stench map" below to point out where malodorous industries—then called "offensive trades"—were located in the city.

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30 never-before-seen species of flies discovered in Los Angeles

Scientists have found 30 never-before-seen species of flies buzzing about in the city of Los Angeles. The discovery suggests that we know less about the diversity of our winged neighbors than was previously thought. The flies are all members of the phorid family, and were captured in 30 insect traps set up in the backyards of homeowners around the city. Phorid flies are a little smaller than the fruit flies that hover over your bananas.

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Did Neurons Evolve Twice?

The comb jelly, a primitive marine creature, is forcing scientists to rethink how animals got their start.

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Saturday 28 March 2015

Growing Dahlias

Dahlias provide one of the widest arrays of flower colors, sizes, and forms. They range from1/2-inch pompons to the "dinner plate" dahlias that may approach 12 or more inches in diameter. Flower forms include daisy-like single types and fully double types with intermediate forms such as collarettes and anemone types. Dahlias come in nearly all flower colors except true blues.

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Vast Underground City Found in Turkey May Be One of the World’s Largest

A newly discovered complex of carved rooms and tunnels may prove to be the largest of the many mysterious ancient underground cities in Turkey’s Cappadocia region.

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Beavers Are Great for the Environment. As Neighbors, Not So Much

In this case, it's not just the beavers that are eager.The dam-building rodents are getting a boost across the West, thanks to their signature water-blocking homes.

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Elon Musk: Burning Fossil Fuels Is the 'Dumbest Experiment in History, By Far'

Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX, and chairman of SolarCity, and the guy who dreamt up the hyper loop, says we shouldn't need an environmentally motivated reason to transition to clean energy. We're probably going to run out of oil sometime; why find out if we can destroy the world while we do it, if an alternative exists?

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Flood torrents devastate Peru and Chile

Heavy rains have brought torrential floods and mudslides to parts of Peru and Chile - including the Atacama desert, one of the driest regions of the world.

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Smart meter scheme could be IT disaster, says IoD

The government's £11bn scheme to roll out energy saving smart meters could be an "IT disaster", the Institute of Directors warns.

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Sleeping Volcano Awakens

. The Villarrica Volcano expelled smoke as scientists warn the concentration of lava, contained within the structure, is close to the crater in Santiago,Chile

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Meet The Cool Beans Designed To Beat Climate Change

A planet that is warming at extraordinary speed may require extraordinary new food crops. The latest great agricultural hope is beans that can thrive in temperatures that cripple most conventional beans. They're now growing in test plots of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, or CIAT, in Colombia. Many of these "heat-beater" beans resulted from a unique marriage, 20 years ago, of tradition and technology. The matchmaker was a Colombian scientist named Alvaro Mejia-Jimenez.

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Major Antarctic ice survey reveals dramatic melting

Coastal ice shelves are thinning and the process is speeding up, making it easier for land ice to reach the sea and raise global sea levels

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How Brain-Damaging Mercury Puts Arctic Kids at Risk

Inuit children, exposed in the womb, have lower IQs because their mothers eat whale meat and other foods tainted with contaminants that drift north.

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Canada’s Government Has Removed Regulations That Protect Its Rivers And Lakes

In its quest for oil, Canada has lifted regulations on much of its water supply.

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Toshio Shibata’s Mesmerizing Photographs of Water

The Japanese photographer finds sublime beauty in unlikely landscapes.

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Friday 27 March 2015

How Consciousness is Created in The Brain

Scientists and philosophers have long scratched their heads over the origins of consciousness. But this new research strongly suggests we have an answer.

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Obama Mercury Air Pollution Rule Faces Test at U.S. Top Court

The latest legal test of President Barack Obama's environmental agenda reaches the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday as the justices consider a challenge to a regulation intended to limit emissions of mercury and other hazardous pollutants mainly from coal-fired power plants.

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Earth’s surface rising in North America, Europe: after-effect of ice age

In the U.S., this past year has had more than enough reminders of how weather can affect our lives.

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The Deepest Holes Dug by Hand

To excavate mines and tunnels, we use drills and expensive machines. So how did our ancestors manage to dig hundreds of metres into the Earth?

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Teaching Evolution to Students Who Tell Me They’ll Pray for My Soul

To teach evolution at the University of Kentucky is to teach at an institution steeped in the history of defending evolution education. The first effort to pass an anti-evolution law (led by William Jennings Bryan) happened in Kentucky in 1921. It proposed making the teaching of evolution illegal. The university’s president at that time, Frank McVey, saw this bill as a threat to academic freedom.

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Dragonflies: Masters of Air and Water

Bird-watching has more popular recognition as a hobby, but you can also dragonfly-watch. And what’s not to love about dragonflies? With names like Cyrano Darner, Serpent Ringtail, Black-winged Dragonlet, and a whole group of Shadow Dragons, they make a life list interesting. A new book by an avid dragon-watcher is a collection of photos and essays about these predatory minibeasts.

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