Biodiversity 101 ...

Biodiversity's rather important for without it, earth dies, including us. With this in mind, consider the plight of honeybees, insects that pollinate approximately 33% of the food we eat, based on what we are doing to our planet as we speak.

While the decline of European honeybees in the United States and beyond has been
well publicized in recent years, the more than 4,000 species of native bees in North
America and Hawaii have been much less documented. Although these native bees
are not as well known as honeybees, they play a vital role in functioning ecosystems and also
provide more than $3 billion dollars in fruit-pollination services each year just in the United
States.

For this first-of-its-kind analysis, the Center for Biological Diversity conducted a systematic
review of the status of all 4,337 North American and Hawaiian native bees. Our key findings:

• Among native bee species with sufficient data to assess (1,437), more than half (749) are declining.
• Nearly 1 in 4 (347 native bee species) is imperiled and at increasing risk of extinction.
• For many of the bee species lacking sufficient population data, it’s likely they are also declining or at risk of extinction. Additional research is urgently needed to protect them.
• A primary driver of these declines is agricultural intensification, which includes habitat destruction and pesticide use. Other major threats are climate change and urbanization.
• These troubling findings come as a growing body of research has revealed that more than 40 percent of insect pollinators globally are highly threatened, including many of the native bees critical to unprompted crop and wildflower pollination across the United States.

Time to wake up about caring for the environment don't you think?

A Solar System update :)

Stunning says it all regarding our solar system as envisioned by Tabletop Whale, an amazing science illustration website.

This week’s map shows the orbits of more than 18000 asteroids in the solar system. This includes everything we know of that’s over 10km in diameter - about 10000 asteroids - as well as 8000 randomized objects of unknown size. This map shows each asteroid at its exact position on New Years’ Eve 1999.

Here's another.

This week’s blog post is a topographic map of the planet Mercury - the smallest planet and the one closest to the sun. I wanted to map each of the rocky planets in the same style, so this week’s code tutorial actually also includes code for mapping Mars, Venus, and the Moon.

Although Mercury has very few labeled features, I really liked the IAU naming theme for the planet. Craters on Mercury are named after famous artists - including some of my favorites, Lange (named for Dorothea Lange), Gaudí (Antoni Gaudí i Cornet), and Plath (Sylvia Plath).

Stellar without question. :)

Ramification ...

ram·i·fi·ca·tion
/ˌraməfəˈkāSH(ə)n/
 Learn to pronounce
noun
plural noun: ramifications
a consequence of an action or event, especially when complex or unwelcome.
"any change is bound to have legal ramifications"
synonyms: consequence, result, aftermath, outcome, effect, upshot, issue, sequel; More
a subdivision of a complex structure or process perceived as comparable to a tree's branches.
"an extended family with its ramifications of neighboring in-laws"
FORMAL•TECHNICAL
the action or state of ramifying or being ramified.

Said word is more than appropriate when it comes to Iran and the incredibly stupid and dangerous actions the US is taking against her based on an inept false flag and total ignorance of the fact of international waters regarding Oman, Iran and the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran’s territorial waters in the Strait of Hormuz amount to 12 nautical miles (22 km). Since 1959, Iran recognizes only non-military naval transit.

Since 1972, Oman’s territorial waters in the Strait of Hormuz also amount to 12 nautical miles. At its narrowest, the width of the Strait is 21 nautical miles (39 km). That means, crucially, that half of the Strait of Hormuz is in Iranian territorial waters and the other half in Oman’s. There are no “international waters”.

Regarding the false flag ... As much as 30% of the world’s oil supply transits the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. Wily Persian Gulf traders – who know better – are virtually unanimous; if Tehran was really responsible for the Gulf of Oman tanker incident, oil prices would be going through the roof by now. They aren’t.

Even Israel agrees.



It gets better

For the past few days, intelligence circles across Eurasia had been prodding Tehran to consider a quite straightforward scenario. There would be no need to shut down the Strait of Hormuz if Quds Force commander, General Qasem Soleimani, the ultimate Pentagon bête noire, explained in detail, on global media, that Washington simply does not have the military capacity to keep the Strait open.

As I previously reported, shutting down the Strait of Hormuz

would destroy the American economy by detonating the $1.2 quadrillion derivatives market; and that would collapse the world banking system, crushing the world’s $80 trillion GDP and causing an unprecedented depression.

Endgame if the US is totally out of its mind and shuts off the ability of Iran to ship essential oil exports to countries like China ...

And that adds to Tehran now openly saying that Iran may decide to close the Strait of Hormuz publicly – and not by stealth.

Iran’s indirect, asymmetric warfare response to any US adventure will be very painful. Prof. Mohammad Marandi of the University of Tehran once again reconfirmed, “even a limited strike will be met by a major and disproportionate response.” And that means gloves off, big time; anything from really blowing up tankers to, in Marandi’s words, “Saudi and UAE oil facilities in flames”.

Hezbollah will launch tens of thousands of missiles against Israel. As

Hezbollah’s secretary-general Hasan Nasrallah has been stressing in his speeches, “war on Iran will not remain within that country’s borders, rather it will mean that the entire [Middle East] region will be set ablaze. All of the American forces and interests in the region will be wiped out, and with them the conspirators, first among them Israel and the Saudi ruling family.”

Remember, Iran is not Arab, its Persian and the location of the country is perfect in terms of defense vis a vis the US. Maybe the idiots in the WH should WTF up and realize this is folly of the most pernicious kind.

Creativity 101

Centerline

Creativity 101:

1. The Act of Creation - Arthur Koestler: The creative act is the joining together of two or more seemingly dissimilar ideas that generate a heretofore unexpected result. i.e. Chemistry - H20 consists of 2 Hydrogen + 1 Oxygen atoms, both explosive yet, when combined, becomes water.
   The joke: Henny Youngman - Take my wife, Please. :)
2. Creativity starts with the asking of a question: Why is this the way it is?
   Question everything - Einstein
3. Creativity takes courage as new ideas disrupt the "natural" order of things.
4. Creativity is problem-solving. It matters not the discipline used save that said discipline shapes how the creative act is produced.
5. The act itself is ineffable and cannot be explained. Like quantum, creativity just happens. It cannot be forced, only acted upon when the idea shows up. The finished act is anything but as it can be explained after the fact without issue.
6. Practice makes better. Beginners mind and intuition are key.
7. The size of the problem solved dictates the significance of the creative act. i.e. Mixing anchovies with pineapples on a pizza is a creative act. The size or importance of the problem solved, not so much while Einstein's Theory of relativity proving that Newton was wrong at a universal scale, is.
8. Creativity, like tech and existence, has no morality. It simply is.

Backlight

MAD

It's crucial to monitor and model nuclear weapons testing, which is in part the purpose of this equipment at the Rocky Flats Plant's Critical Mass Laboratory (photographed in 1970). The US and Russia (and before that the USSR) have been sparing over the limits of testing for decades.

MAD/Mutually Assured Destruction, the policy the US and USSR implements to prevent nuclear war, has worked for almost 70 years, something rather amazing given just how easy it is to have an accident or a misread as to what each country will do in a crisis when it comes to tech as fragile and powerful as nukes truly are. With this in mind, it's no wonder posturing, quasi lying and deception become part of the game where there is no winner if missiles are launched to bring about Armageddon, military style.

IN A MAZE of tunnels 900 feet beneath the Nevada desert, US nuclear weapons scientists have since the 1990s been intermittently agitating flecks of plutonium with chemical high explosives, carefully trying to push them to the brink of a chain reaction capable of yielding nuclear force.

IN A SEPARATE network of underground tunnels about 4,800 miles away, in the northern Russian archipelago of Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic Circle, Russia conducts its own such experiments, meant to model the key chemical and physical actions that occur in the run-up to a full-blown nuclear explosion, without actually causing one.

Experiments at the two sites are used by both nations to help ensure their nuclear arsenals remain viable but conducted under a blanket of secrecy. And so they’ve given rise to suspicions—and accusations—that they violate a 1996 global treaty designed to stymie nuclear weapons innovations by barring any nuclear explosions.

MAD indeed.

Water Wars ...

Global distribution of the current likelihood of hydro-political issues among the main transboundary basins (transboundary basin borders in black, non-transboundary areas.

Water wars, similar in terms of inevitability with nations desiring ever more powerful weapons, become a given due to just how intense the impact of climate change will be on planet earth as man moves further into the 21st century.

Competition over limited water resources is one of the main concerns for the coming decades. Although water issues alone have not been the sole trigger for warfare in the past, tensions over freshwater management and use represent one of the main concerns in political relations between riparian states and may exacerbate existing tensions, increase regional instability and social unrest. Previous studies made great efforts to understand how international water management problems were addressed by actors in a more cooperative or confrontational way. In this study, we analyze what are the pre-conditions favoring the insurgence of water management issues in shared water bodies, rather than focusing on the way water issues are then managed among actors. 

Factor in the issue of too many people and the scenario for chaos becomes even direr.

Changes in population density are expected to exacerbate the anthropogenic pressure on water resources, the availability of which is strongly impacted by changes in climate. The combination of these two factors is estimated to impact negatively on the overall hydro-political risk. The likelihood of water related issues is expected to increase globally, with gridded values averaging between +36.4% in the case of moderate climate change (RCP 4.5) and +37.1% in the case of the more pessimistic climate scenario (RCP 8.5) for the year 2050, and respectively between +39.3 and +46.8% for the year 2100. 

Don't say we haven't been warned.

It's inevitable ...

It's inevitable ... aptly describes the endless pursuit of ever more powerful weapons by every nation on planet earth, a concept particularly apropos to hypersonic weapons, a tech that cannot be stopped, based on large part as to just how fast this hardware can go in delivering death, in minutes, to anyone unfortunate enough to be in its path.

Griffin was referring to a revolutionary new type of weapon, one that would have the unprecedented ability to maneuver and then to strike almost any target in the world within a matter of minutes. Capable of traveling at more than 15 times the speed of sound, hypersonic missiles arrive at their targets in a blinding, destructive flash, before any sonic booms or other meaningful warning. So far, there are no surefire defenses. Fast, effective, precise and unstoppable — these are rare but highly desired characteristics on the modern battlefield. And the missiles are being developed not only by the United States but also by China, Russia and other countries.

Cheap to deploy is an added bonus to defense contractors of almost any size

The enthusiasm has spread to military contractors, especially after the Pentagon awarded the largest one, Lockheed Martin, more than $1.4 billion in 2018 to build missile prototypes that can be launched by Air Force fighter jets and B-52 bombers. 

With a little bit of luck, these weapons might prove to be more successful than Lockheed's F 35, the jet that just can't cut in in ways that truly boggle the mind.

At extremely high altitudes, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps’ versions of the F-35 jet can only fly at supersonic speeds for short bursts of time before there is a risk of structural damage and loss of stealth capability, a problem that may make it impossible for the Navy’s F-35C to conduct supersonic intercepts.

The Defense Department does not intend to field a fix for the problem, which influences not only the F-35’s airframe and the low-observable coating that keeps it stealthy, but also the myriad antennas located on the back of the plane that are currently vulnerable to damage, according to documents exclusively obtained by Defense News.

This is understandable as the US no longer makes anything and lacks the infrastructure to train people on how to make things. Makes sense doesn't it?

The Picture of Everything

Astounding says it all. The Picture of Everything | Howard Hallis.

Q: How big is the original?

A: The original is in 8 pieces. All together they measure around 15 feet high by 14 feet wide.

Q: How many characters do you have in the picture?

A: I have no idea. Thousands.

Q: Is there anyone you DON'T have in there?

A: Hitler.

Q: Do the sides of The Picture meet each other?

A: Yes. The sides meet, as do the top and bottom. I wanted to have an endless loop.

Q: What was the biggest inspiration for this picture?

A: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s "Bluebeard".

Q: Why isn't there a character key online?

A: The piece is more subjective that way.

Q: Where's Waldo?

A: He's in there twice.

Q: Why are some things in the picture twice?

A: Some people and characters are in there multiple times.

Minority Report - coming soon ...

Minority Report - via Project Soli - coming soon ...

Soli sensor technology works by emitting electromagnetic waves in a broad beam.

Objects within the beam scatter this energy, reflecting some portion back towards the radar antenna. Properties of the reflected signal, such as energy, time delay, and frequency shift capture rich information about the object’s characteristics and dynamics, including size, shape, orientation, material, distance, and velocity.

End result: virtual dials, buttons and sliders.

Minority Report indeed.

"Stewards" of the planet

The Dandora Landfill in Nairobi, Kenya is a sprawling 30-acre dump that grows by an average of 850 tons of solid waste a day, according to the U.N. Environment Programme.

Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Robert Koch Gallery, San Francisco / Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto

BRT has talked often about the Anthropocene, the 6th great extinction event being caused by us 24/7.  With this sad fact in mind, NPR's Anthropocene Project details, via powerful photography and editorial, how this slow-motion disaster is occurring as we speak. Note that the climate change part of the equation is not being discussed, only environmental degradation, driven by pollution, resource depletion, greed and, of course, fossil fuel production.

Photographer Edward Burtynsky and filmmakers Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier were inspired by this ongoing discussion of the debate over this new geological era. These three Canadian artists traveled to 22 countries to research and document "places of obvious, physical human incursions on the landscape," says filmmaker de Pencier.

They created over 50 images capturing the impact of humans on the Earth, like a sprawling, 30-acre garbage dump in Kenya, seen above ed. large swaths of deforestation in Borneo and waterways damaged by oil siphoning in Nigeria.

An underground potash mine in the Ural mountains of Russia. The potassium-rich salt is mined to produce fertilizer. The team says that the mine shows the impact of modernized agricultural practices that help feed Earth's 7.5 billion people. The spiraled pattern seen here is caused by the machines used to extract the salts. Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Robert Koch Gallery, San Francisco / Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto

The spiral patterns remind one of this little guy does it not?

Earth will recover ... once we are gone or finally wake up as to what it really means to be stewards of the planet, take your pick. One can only hope.