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May 2010
May 29, 2010
May 28, 2010
Soil as Salvation: Does a Country's Dirt Determine Its Destiny? (via @sciencenow & @PLoS)
From PLoS Study link below: Figure 1. Modelled "suitability" (probability of occurrence, Maxent) for (A) agriculture, (B) sedentary animal husbandry, (C) nomadic pastoralism, and (D) hunting and gathering.
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/05/does-a-countrys-dirt-determine-i.htmlDavid Malakoff @sciencenow: "Chad is dirt poor because its dirt is poor. Germany is relatively rich because its soil is rich. That’s the provocative conclusion flowing from a new study, which suggests that just two fundamental factors—soil type and climate—can largely explain why humans have prospered in some places but not in others. The finding, drawn from a computer model originally used to predict the distribution of moths, also may help explain why some regions are more prone to violence than others...
From: @PLoS: Is the Spatial Distribution of Mankind's Most Basic Economic Traits Determined by Climate and Soil Alone?
Jan Beck, Andrea Sieber, University of Basel, Switzerland: Several authors, most prominently Jared Diamond (1997, Guns, Germs and Steel), have investigated biogeographic determinants of human history and civilization. The timing of the transition to an agricultural lifestyle, associated with steep population growth and consequent societal change, has been suggested to be affected by the availability of suitable organisms for domestication. These factors were shown to quantitatively explain some of the current global inequalities of economy and political power. Here, we advance this approach one step further by looking at climate and soil as sole determining factors..."
Also see: Our Good Earth: The Future Rests on the SoIl Beneath our Feet: National Geographic September 2008 (@ngmag)
by Charles Mann and Jim Richardson (@jrichardson4754)
Cheap Eye on Earth: Weather balloon+Powershot camera+GPS = Earth Pix @90,000 ft. (via @nytimes)
View from near space NIXHAB-3 November 23, 2009
Fascinating story of an Iowa man who modifies the internal software of Canon Powershot (point-and-shoot category) cameras to allow extended time-lapse photography. Pete Lilja of Cedar Rapids attaches the camera and a GPS transmitter to a helium balloon and launches the rig into the stratosphere over the US Midwest for near space photography. He gets pictures of Earth from above 85,000 feet, like this example above from the NIXHAB website, link below.
Tweaking a Camera to Suit a Hobby (via @nytimes)Peter Wayner: "When he is not fighting fires in Waterloo, Iowa, Pete Lilja likes to rig his camera to a weather balloon and send it up to record the world.
"I got a picture when the balloon was at about 87,000 feet above northeast Iowa," he said. "We could see Lake Michigan. That was pretty impressive."
To take these photos, Mr. Lilja, of Cedar Falls, packed his Canon A570is with a GPS transmitter in a cushioned box (and attached his phone number in case the GPS failed). He chose that particular point-and-shoot camera because a group of programmers from around the world had created software that gave photo hobbyists like him the ability to change the way Canon intended the camera to operate...."
NIXHAB: North Iowa Experimental High Altitude Ballooning
Extreme Weather: Severe Flooding on Poland's Vistula River, May 2010 (via @NASA_EO and @GlobalPost)
Vistula River, Poland, May 22, 2010 Photo from International Space Station via @NASA_EO
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=44102NASA Earth Observatory: This image from the International Space Station shows widespread flooding along the Vistula River in southeastern Poland. A major river in Poland, the Vistula originates on the western slopes of the mountain Barania Gora in the Carpathian Mountains in southern Poland. ...While the flooding illustrated here is extensive, it represents but a small "snapshot" of conditions that have developed in Eastern Europe over the past one to two weeks.
Spring flooding of rivers is not an uncommon occurrence in Poland but this event has been described as the most serious flood in several decades....In the spring of 2010, heavy rains caused high waters in the Vistula River, first in southern Poland. Hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated as the river level rose and broke through waterlogged dikes and embankments. The flood surge then moved northward through Warsaw, continuing towards the Baltic Sea.
@Global Post: In Poland, Floods Threaten Political Consequences
Jan Cienski: Warsaw, Poland: Bridges across the Vistula River, which runs through the heart of Warsaw, were packed Saturday with sightseers coming to get a look at the most serious flood in more than a century, part of a widespread natural disaster that has inundated parts of the south of Poland and is now moving north.
Vistula River in flood, Krakow Poland, May 18, 2010, Photo from Creative Commons by sharpetka86/flickr
May 27, 2010
Planet Manager: You (Too) Can Model Future Climate Change with this "App" (via @newsecuritybeat)
Eye on Environmental Security: Want to Model Climate Change? There's an App for That (@newsecuritybeat)
http://newsecuritybeat.blogspot.com/2010/05/eye-on-environmental-security-want-to.htmlDan Asin: "C-Learn, developed by the coalition group Climate Interactive, is a three-region climate simulator that allows users to input targets for fossil fuels emissions, emissions from deforestation, and reductions from afforestation. The app then outputs the expected results for atmospheric CO2 concentrations and global temperature..."
Climate Interactive: http://climateinteractive.org/