NASA’s 19-Gigapixel Filmstrip of the Earth

With the newest generation of Landsat satellites up and snappin’, in orbit over 400 miles above us, NASA continues a mission over a generation in the making: Observing a beautiful and changing planet from above.

This video features 56 photos stitched together in a continuous 19-gigapixel image that stretches from Russia to South Africa. Dig in to the interactive “Long Swath” at NASA’s Earth Observatory. This image covers almost 1.7 million square kilometers, but it would take over 300 of them to paint a picture of all of Earth’s surface.

Bonus: Combine this with Google’s Earth Engine to gain a perspective on our planet once reseved for time-traveling astronauts.

(via The Atlantic)

Source: The Atlantic

Discovery, Animal Planet, and History Channel exposed for killing animals for profit

climateadaptation:

These channels are failing the spirit of conservationism and education. They are failing inspiring awe in young people. Failing much needed inspiration in a very confused and conflicted world.

These shows are failing their core values, their main purpose, which is leadership in environmentalism and cultural education. Far worse, they are failing millions of young people - millions - who look up to them.

Please join me in asking Discovery, Animal Planet, and the History Channels to stop, apologize, and correct.

That’s an important read up there, folks. These “reality” shows are feeding an outdated and unscientific view of predator species. These are channels founded on principles of education and conservation (TLC, of course, left the building years ago). Are they willing to sacrifice that for what appears to be gratuitous bloodsport?

Like any media, you can vote with your eyeballs. And if you support any kind of rights for wild animals and natural spaces, you can not support these programs. If the account above is true, shame on these networks.

It speaks to part of a larger issue with nature films. The amazing footage we see in shows like Africa, Planet Earth, and Frozen Planet is rarely the result of serendipity. It involves years of careful research and preparation to maximize the chances of capturing nature’s majesty on camera, and what is captured is highly edited to create story, drama and emotion. These are uniquely human interests, and nature doesn’t include them in her original script.

That’s not to say we are being fleeced all the time. People like Sir David Attenborough take these concerns very seriously, and constantly strive to find the balance between entertainment and true nature in every varying instance. What we watch is real. But is it REAL?

I wonder how many people realize that, for instance, the famous polar bear birth scene from Frozen Planet was filmed in a zoo? Disney’s adorable Chimpanzee movie was not a documentary, but rather spliced together to create an emotional tale of adoption. Jason Goldman put together a great collection of opinions on the matter.

How far can we take allowances to deliver good edutainment before we are delivering bad science? The “reality” shows surely fail the test. But the others? What do you think?

Space Sounds - New Episode of It’s Okay To Be Smart!!

There is no sound in space.

In the near-vacuum of space, there is nothing to transmit the physical waves that we need to perceive sound. But that doesn’t mean we can’t MAKE sound from space.

This week, I channeled some inner Sagan, got a bit artsy, and I’m happy to feature several brilliant folks using scientific data to create “space sonification” projects. From the longest palindrome ever created to a chorus made from Earth’s magnetic field, these pieces truly lie at the intersection of art and science. More than just art, they allow us to perceive patterns in complex data in a completely new way. Some of them are actually used as part of space research projects!

Perhaps it answers the question: If the universe had a voice, what song would it sing?

For those of you who follow the blog in addition to the YouTube channel, you’ll get some special treats this week when I feature even more space sonification examples that we couldn’t fit into this episode!

FULL Versions of the pieces featured in this week’s video:

Robert Alexander - Transit of Venus 

Semiconductor Films - “20 Hz”

Van Allen Belt chorus

Daniel Starr-Tambor - “Mandala” (this piece is the longest palndrome ever created, at 62 viginitillion notes!!)

Source: youtube.com

The Earliest Days of NASA Maria Popova, at Brain Pickings, happened upon a treasure trove of early NASA (and its airplane-only predecessor NACA) archive photos. They are really something. From biplanes to the Mercury capsule, pre-1950 aeronautics seemed to live by the motto of “If we build it, then we can go there.” That’s a sentiment we could use a bit more of. More here.
Zoom Info
The Earliest Days of NASA Maria Popova, at Brain Pickings, happened upon a treasure trove of early NASA (and its airplane-only predecessor NACA) archive photos. They are really something. From biplanes to the Mercury capsule, pre-1950 aeronautics seemed to live by the motto of “If we build it, then we can go there.” That’s a sentiment we could use a bit more of. More here.
Zoom Info
The Earliest Days of NASA Maria Popova, at Brain Pickings, happened upon a treasure trove of early NASA (and its airplane-only predecessor NACA) archive photos. They are really something. From biplanes to the Mercury capsule, pre-1950 aeronautics seemed to live by the motto of “If we build it, then we can go there.” That’s a sentiment we could use a bit more of. More here.
Zoom Info
The Earliest Days of NASA Maria Popova, at Brain Pickings, happened upon a treasure trove of early NASA (and its airplane-only predecessor NACA) archive photos. They are really something. From biplanes to the Mercury capsule, pre-1950 aeronautics seemed to live by the motto of “If we build it, then we can go there.” That’s a sentiment we could use a bit more of. More here.
Zoom Info

The Earliest Days of NASA

Maria Popova, at Brain Pickings, happened upon a treasure trove of early NASA (and its airplane-only predecessor NACA) archive photos. They are really something. From biplanes to the Mercury capsule, pre-1950 aeronautics seemed to live by the motto of “If we build it, then we can go there.” That’s a sentiment we could use a bit more of.

More here.

The way we try to recruit girls into STEM fields is all wrong. We typically compare them to some great woman or someone that has gone before them. We are saying, “Hey, you can be like Madam Curie or Sally Ride.” It is recruiting by intimidation. We need to change that message. We need to recruit by appealing to WHY we need them in STEM. We NEED you to help make the world a better place We NEED you to help discover the cure for cancer. We NEED you because you have the ability to change the course of humanity for the better.

Tim Holt on why we still see the number of females in STEM fields fall way behind their male counterparts. Also see how geography paved the way for women in science.

(↬ gender and science)

(via scinerds)

Source: explore-blog

Let’s agree that we’re in agreement about the climate and move on

An international team of scientists recently surveyed almost 12,000 climate science research publications to gauge the consensus on manmade global warming among people who know lots about climate science. They did this because some people still like to pretend like there’s plenty of skepticism and doubt about what’s causing all this. 

What did they find? Well, of the 4,000 papers that declared a position on the cause of global warming since 1991, 97.1% of them agreed that humans were causing a majority of global warming. The rest? Most of them didn’t claim a position because it’s so well-accepted that they didn’t want to waste the space. 

And just how small is the leftover, even if it was real doubt (which it isn’t)? That 2.9% remainder is less than:

Can we start accepting how much everyone who understands the science is in agreement and work on fixing it and adapting to it? The doubt is not real. Just like the Loch Ness Monster.

Read more about the climate research survey at Smithsonian.com. Read more about the crazy psychology behind conspiracy theories here (which is all I am willing to call climate science denialism from here on out).

So there.