Issue 20
World
The Scientist / And the Bats Great article on tracking down a viral reservoir. “Eby’s dogged success exposes a global scientific blind spot. It’s not that trendy science involving the latest AI wonders isn’t worthy of research dollars. It’s that it should not be funded at the expense of the sort of long-term, shoe-leather work that allowed Eby and her colleagues to solve the mystery of a deadly contagion”.
- https://www.propublica.org/article/australia-bats-hendra-research-pandemic-prevention
- If this interests you at all, highly recommend David Quammen’s “Spillover”: https://davidquammen.com/other-books/
Minimum Wage Around the World You can see how imnportant the Federal Minimum wage is in a map of the US. I find the World map of much less value since it is not compared to cost of living and it’s the relative strength of that, compared to the minimum wage, that would be more interesting.
Thatched roofs in Japan Thatched roofs are always cool looking. Not sure it would be great to own one. Fire and vermin are two things that come to mind for me. But I like to look at them. Here’s an interesting story on thatching in Japan, near Kyoto. And visitors can stay there.
Climate Change / Global Warming
Earth past its safe limits for humans, Earth Commission scientists say. Haven’t heard of the Earth Commission before. It’s an interesting site.
- Original FT article: https://on.ft.com/3OIJepb
- More on the Earth Commission: https://earthcommission.org/about/
- Nature Paper on Safe and just Earth system boundaries: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06083-8
- Just World and Safe Planet: https://earthcommission.org/news/publications/just-world-safe-planet/
Setting AI loose for training in Digital Twins? This article gave me the idea: https://www.wired.com/story/fast-forward-gpt-4-minecraft-chatgpt/
Interesting app to track long distance progress of events.
- Map Progress App: https://app.maprogress.com/
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Race to Alaska tracker:
- Stage 2 tracker. Going on now: https://r2ak2023.maprogress.com/
Biogeography / Biodiversity
A bit of hope, and then a bit more painful reality of humans damaging our planet. Are we the only species that shits in our own bed?
Back to the eDNA future.
Monitoring biodiversity with filters from air pollution monitors. Quite an ingenius way to leverage an existing monitoring network. A silver lining from the pandemic is we can much more quickly, easily, and cheaply, sequence DNA. So, this is just the start and when these sets of tools become widespread it is a potential game changer if we can correlate population density as well as mere detection. It could be a key tool in our half-Earth initiative.
- BBC Article: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230606-how-air-pollution-sensors-can-find-wildlife
- Half Earth. Fuck 30x30. That’s just a stepping stone. But good on Biden for helping us step a little closer. https://www.half-earthproject.org/
A Fishery product instead of Medical Animal Unchanged for 445 million years their blue blood is used to identify whether or not vaccines are contaminated “scientists discovered that the sky blue blood inside horseshoe crabs would clot when it detected bacterial toxins. Vaccines, drugs and medical devices have to be sterile before they’re put inside people. A better toxin detection system meant less contamination risk for patients”. Even though there is a cheaper synthetic protein alternative. If Horeshoe Crabs were regulaled as a lab animal they, and the ecosystems they support, would not be in such decline. Instead, they are regulated as a fishery. And like most of our other fisheries they are in decline. So too, are the ecosystems they support. Thousands of birds rely on the crab’s eggs in the breeding season before they finish their migration to the Arctic.
Global macrogenetic map of marine habitat-forming species
“A study warns that even in the marine protected areas (MPAs) the genetic diversity of structural species is not protected, although it is essential for the response and adaptation of populations to changes that alter the natural environment.”
- Popular article: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/05/230524181950.htm
- Journal article: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/geb.13685
- Protected Planet Database: https://www.protectedplanet.net/en
Central America
Mayans The ongoing story of how lidar is changing everything in jungle Archaeology.
US
Florida: Interesting story from the BBC about the Overseas Highway. The headline has it all wrong though, it’s not actually floating, which the article states.
- https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20230528-the-overseas-highway-the-us-floating-highway
- Actual floating bridges. Four of the five longest floating bridges are in Washington State: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pontoon_bridges
United States, Northwest
Cyark does a tour of Shirk Ranch in Oregon: