If anyone thinks of the new explorers as grown-up children playing with expensive toys, ocean veterans reply that there is ample scientific justification for creating new technologies that can regularly plumb the full depth of the ocean, which covers more than 70 percent of the planet yet remains poorly explored.
Archive | August, 2011
Ambitions as Deep as Their Pockets – NYTimes.com
1 AugThe Root of the Problem | The Scientist
1 AugLove the microbes, they connect us all to the soil, water, and air.
In all the work being done to illuminate and quantify the importance of belowground dynamics in driving the carbon cycle, the central message is similar: to better understand ecosystem functioning and its response to global change, we must consider feedbacks among plants, microbes, and soil processes. It’s clear that root carbon transfer and resulting carbon cascades through the plant-microbial-soil system play a primary role in driving carbon-cycle feedbacks and in regulating ecosystem responses to climate change.
The intersection of food, design and politics
1 AugFascinating images from the Good Olde Days (But the Best Days are Yet to Come).
Above and below are some samples from The Diggers Archive, a group of radical thinkers from 1960s San Francisco that used food (free healthy food!) as part of their art and political message. These pieces are from their newspaper FREE CITY NEWS, that showcased some pretty cool hippie graphic design.
via The intersection of food, design and politics – Imprint – Salon.com.
Another Open Letter to Ralph Nader: Please, Please, Please!
1 AugResilience in No-Man’s Land: Float Like a Butterfly
Been thinkin’ about you, Ralph. You gotta’ run, you really do. For the frogs, yes, and for the kids.
Let me tell you about some kids. I’ve only met them once, only talked to one of them. But I know they’re resilient because I’ve seen what they’ve built. Though they’re probably not old enough to vote for anyone, and they know the world’s stacked against them, I figure they’d vote for someone like you because they know you’ve done something to change the country, to make it safer—though they can be a bit reckless, these kids.
So, anyhow, they like to skateboard (they spell it sk8, fewer characters, you know?) and to ride BMX bikes. But there’s no place for them to do it. The city’s too busy handing out construction contracts to friends and friends of friends so they can build high-rise apartment complexes for wannabe bankers and gofers to bankers, because, YOU know Ralph, that those bankers are swimming in so much cash that even the gofers and wannabes can afford to live in luxury. Continue reading
Truth and Traditions 