The Better Nature of Humanity Will Prevail

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Re: The Better Nature of Humanity Will Prevail

Postby seemslikeadream » Tue Mar 06, 2018 9:00 am

Scientists Create 'Artificial Photosynthesis' To Generate Clean Energy

There's a race going on at the moment in the science world. Various teams around the globe are all competing to be the first to produce a solid, stable form of artificial photosynthesis that functions exactly like the real deal in plants.

Solar panels are fine and all (they're certainly a lot better than they were a few decades ago) but this form of solar energy collection and storage is inherently flawed. Despite their growing popularity, solar panels are nowhere near as efficient as, say, living plants at turning sunlight into power. For one thing, solar panels are utterly useless when in low light situations, and it's tricky finding ways to adequately store energy from solar cells without too much electricity seeping away over time.

Thus, teams like the one headed by Boston College professor Dunwei Wang are rushing to be the first to find a form of artificial photosynthesis that matches up to the organic alternative. Wang's team now believe that they've cracked the formula, thanks to a special catalyst that - in theory at least - should allow their version of photosynthesis a lot more stability.

Artificial photosynthesis, like the real stuff, relies on more than just collecting sunlight. Water and carbon dioxide are used alongside solar energy in order to produce fuel that can be used to power devices, or stored for later use, depending on the circumstances.

While most attempts at photosynthesis use a catalyst of some form, they're traditionally single atom structures that often can't withstand the process that they're put through with any degree of longevity. Wang's team used a special two-atom catalyst made from iridium that, essentially, is capable of putting up with more strain without wearing out.

The result should be a tougher, more durable catalyst, and as such, a more efficient artificial photosynthesis process. According to Wang himself

It seems that this new potential fuel source will enable a more cost-effective artificial photosynthesis process.While this is bad news for solar farms that already exist, it's fantastic news for our planet's growing energy crisis and for the environment itself.

The nice thing about artificial photosynthesis over other forms of solar power is that the process of creating energy actually uses up carbon dioxide - something that, considering the amount of greenhouse gases we're currently pumping into the atmosphere, will hopefully be able to at least slow the negative effects that we're having on the environment.

It's worth keeping an eye on research like this. If anybody's going to reverse the global damage caused by our own self-destructive love of fossil fuels, it'll be teams of scientists that are looking into alternative energy sources. If we're very lucky, that might just save the world.
https://www.outerplaces.com/science/ite ... ean-energy
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Re: The Better Nature of Humanity Will Prevail

Postby minime » Fri Mar 09, 2018 12:17 pm

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/06/opin ... ation.html

My brother earned his B.A. while doing a tour in the can college. Highest GPA ever in the history of Illinois' DOC--as of 1980.

:)

Turn Prisons Into Colleges

Imagine if prisons looked like the grounds of universities. Instead of languishing in cells, incarcerated people sat in classrooms and learned about climate science or poetry — just like college students. Or even with them.

This would be a boon to prisoners across the country, a vast majority of whom do not have a high school diploma. And it could help shrink our prison population. While racial disparities in arrests and convictions are alarming, education level is a far stronger predictor of future incarceration than race.

The idea is rooted in history. In the 1920s, Howard Belding Gill, a criminologist and a Harvard alumnus, developed a college-like community at the Norfolk State Prison Colony in Massachusetts, where he was the superintendent. Prisoners wore normal clothing, participated in cooperative self-government with staff, and took academic courses with instructors from Emerson, Boston University and Harvard. They ran a newspaper, radio show and jazz orchestra, and they had access to an extensive library.

Norfolk had such a good reputation, Malcolm X asked to be transferred there from Charlestown State Prison in Boston so, as he wrote in his petition, he could use “the educational facilities that aren’t in these other institutions.” At Norfolk, “there are many things that I would like to learn that would be of use to me when I regain my freedom.” After Malcolm X’s request was granted, he joined the famous Norfolk Debate Society, through which inmates connected to students at Harvard and other universities.

...

Today, only a third of all prisons provide ways for incarcerated people to continue their educations beyond high school. But the San Quentin Prison University Project remains one of the country’s most vibrant educational programs for inmates, so much so President Barack Obama awarded it a National Humanities Medal in 2015 for the quality of its courses.

The idea of expanding educational opportunities to prisoners as a way to reduce recidivism and government spending has again gained momentum. That’s partly because of a study published in 2013 by the right-leaning RAND Corporation showing that inmates who took classes had a 43 percent lower likelihood of recidivism and a 13 percent higher likelihood of getting a job after leaving prison.
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Re: The Better Nature of Humanity Will Prevail

Postby seemslikeadream » Sun Mar 11, 2018 1:48 pm

The Netherlands has become the world’s second largest food exporter, while reducing water usage by 90% and nearly eradicating the use of pesticides

World Economic Forum


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh7BAOIsi08

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https://www.nationalgeographic.com/maga ... e-farming/
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Re: The Better Nature of Humanity Will Prevail

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon Mar 12, 2018 1:59 pm

Schwarzenegger: Let's slap a public health warning on fossil fuels

Megan Rowling
BONN, Germany (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Arnold Schwarzenegger, former California governor and Hollywood actor and film producer, issued a challenge on Sunday to governments to start labeling fossil fuels with a public health warning that their use could cause illness and death.

He lauded the World Health Organization (WHO) for sealing a 164-nation tobacco control pact in 2003 that led to consumers of cigarettes and cigars being alerted to the health risks of smoking, including lung cancer.

A similar accord could be put in place for products derived from fossil fuels such as oil and coal, which emit planet-warming gases when burned, said the politician and environmental activist.

“Wouldn’t it be great now if they could... make the same pact with the rest of the world to go and say, ‘Let’s label another thing that is killing you - which is fossil fuels,’” he said to applause on the sidelines of U.N. climate talks in Bonn.

Schwarzenegger suggested telling customers at petrol stations that “what you pump into your tank may kill you”, and plastering oil tankers driving along highways with messages that their contents are dangerous to health.

“Here’s a challenge for you guys,” he said, directly addressing WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who spoke at the same event.

Schwarzenegger lamented that environmental pollution - estimated to kill more than 9 million people per year in all its forms - was rarely discussed at conferences on climate change. About two-thirds of those deaths are from air pollution.

“This is a massive tragedy - and as depressing and terrifying as it is, we are not talking about it enough,” he said.

In his own political career, his campaign team found that talking about polar bears or degrees of temperature rise was not an effective way to communicate the threat of climate change to the public. But running adverts saying that air pollution killed and gave children breathing problems worked, he said.

Over the 12 days of the climate change conference in Germany, presided over by Fiji, more than 300,000 people would die from harmful substances in their environment, he noted.

SMALL ISLANDS SUFFER

Patricia Espinosa, head of the U.N. climate change secretariat, said climate change needed to be addressed from a broader view “that directly connects human health with the health of the planet”.

Besides deaths caused by respiratory diseases from burning fossil fuels, global warming is harming coral reefs and fish supplies, causing hunger and poverty. Elsewhere, higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are reducing the nutritional content of crops, putting hundreds of millions of people at risk from vitamin deficiencies, she said.

Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama underscored the damage done to health facilities in his small island state from extreme weather, including powerful Cyclone Winston, which caused 44 deaths and wiped out over a third of the nation’s GDP last year.

He stressed the importance of investing in infrastructure to make health systems stronger and more agile in the face of growing disaster threats as global warming brings wilder weather and rising seas.

Although the 2016 cyclone damaged health facilities, Fiji is now building new hospitals and clinics, and reinforcing existing ones, he said.

But to do this requires funding, he added, noting that only a tiny fraction of climate finance is allocated for measures to protect health, and small island developing states “will see only a small part of that”.

An initiative launched on Sunday by the WHO, the U.N. climate secretariat and Fiji aims to triple international financial support for action on climate-related health issues in small island developing states. Its main goal is to ensure health systems are resilient to climate change by 2030.

“Climate change is not a political argument in Fiji and other island nations - it’s everyday reality,” whether that’s in the form of destructive storms, rising sea levels or increased risk of infectious disease, said Ghebreyesus, the WHO chief.

“These communities need assistance to cope with a world that is changing in front of them,” he said.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-clim ... SKBN1DD05V
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Re: The Better Nature of Humanity Will Prevail

Postby seemslikeadream » Wed Mar 14, 2018 11:36 am

‘Students have just had enough:’ Walkouts begin across the nation one month after Florida shooting

Image
Students at the White House participate on Wednesday in national school walkout to protest gun violence. (Photo by Marissa Lang/The Washington Post)

Students at thousands of schools across the country began walking out of class at 10 a.m. Wednesday to protest gun violence and to mark one month since a mass shooting left 17 dead at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

The nationally organized walkouts, most of which were expected to last 17 minutes in symbolic tribute to the Florida victims, are unprecedented in recent American history. Supporters say the protests represent a realization of power and influence by young people raised on social media who have come of age in an era of never-ending wars, highly publicized mass shootings and virulent national politics.

In the Washington region, hundreds of high school students from local districts gathered at the White House carrying signs protesting gun violence and those who oppose gun-control measures. Just before 10 a.m. the crowd fell silent and sat with fists and signs held high. They sat in silence for 17 minutes on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House and planned to march later to the Capitol, where they hope to meet with lawmakers.

At the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, still recovering from a violent white supremacist rally last summer, about 2,000 students gathered on the Lawn, many wiping away tears as the names of the 17 Florida students were read aloud. The university’s chapel bells tolled 17 times as students bowed their heads in silence.

At Columbine High School in Colorado, where shooters killed 12 students and one teacher in 1999, students arriving early for school said they planned to take part in a demonstration at 10 a.m. local time.

Myriah Murren, 14, told her mother “I love you” as she was dropped off before sunrise at Columbine on Wednesday morning. The freshman said she planned to walk out of class later in the morning to send a message to students who survived the shooting in Florida that she and her classmates “care for them.”

“A lot of people will join in,” she said, adding that going to a school that was the site of one of the earliest mass school shootings makes her and her classmates more aware of the issue.

Walkout organizers say that close to 3,000 schools have indicated they will take part and that many more are planning events and memorials independently. On the social media pages for the Women’s March Youth Empower, the group helping to coordinate Wednesday’s walkouts, more than 150,000 students have indicated interest in taking part, said organizer Fatima Younis, a student at Frederick Community College in Maryland. The walkout, she said, is a message that political leaders need to hear.

“We want our Congress to know that some of us will be old enough to vote in the midterm elections, and the rest of us are going to be able to vote in 2020 or 2022, and they’re going to lose their job if they don’t do what we want to keep us safe,” Younis said. She said lawmakers need to increase the age for people to purchase weapons, ban assault-style weapons and demilitarize police forces.

[ ‘Just try to keep calm’: How Parkland students used social media to survive the shooting — and then to find their own voice ]

The response by students to the school shooting in Florida is different, Younis said, because “people thought we were too young to do anything, but students have just had enough. This shooting resonates with people because it could happen to any of us.”

Timeline: How the deadly Florida school shooting unfolded

At least 17 people were killed in a shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla., on Feb. 14. According to officials, this is how and when the events occurred. (Melissa Macaya, Patrick Martin/The Washington Post)

All but three of those who were killed at Stoneman were teenagers. For many of their peers, the list of their names and ages is a depressing reminder of the years stolen from them.

Alyssa Alhadeff, 14. Scott Beigel, 35. Martin Duque, 14. Nicholas Dworet, 17. Aaron Feis, 37. Jaime Guttenberg, 14. Chris Hixon, 49. Luke Hoyer, 15. Cara Loughran, 14. Gina Montalto, 14. Joaquin Oliver, 17. Alaina Petty, 14. Meadow Pollack, 18. Helena Ramsay, 17. Alex Schachter, 14. Carmen Schentrup, 16. Peter Wang, 15.

President Trump and lawmakers are noting the role that students are playing in shaping the discussion on guns. The White House announced Sunday it is establishing a Federal Commission on School Safety to be headed by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. When Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) signed a gun bill Friday that raises the minimum age to purchase a firearm to 21, he said, “To the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, you made your voices heard. You didn’t let up and you fought until there was change.”

But students are paying close attention to lawmakers’ actions and insisting that changes are not cosmetic, but go to the root of gun violence.

Students confront Florida state legislators to demand action on guns

Students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., traveled to their state capital on Feb. 20 to ask lawmakers for gun reform. (Video: Alice Li, Whitney Shefte, Michael Landsberg/Photo: Charlotte Kesl/The Washington Post)

[ 7,000 pairs of shoes on Capitol lawn show toll of gun violence ]

Amanya Paige, 16, a junior at Parkdale High School in Prince George’s County and the student member of the county board of education, said many schools in her district are participating in on-campus walkouts “to pay our respects and to show that the student voice matters and we won’t stand for the lack of gun control when it comes to school safety. This is where we spend the majority of our time and pray that we are safe every day.”

In the days leading up to Wednesday’s expected walkouts, most school districts seem to be working with students to accommodate organized protests but also contain them to school grounds so that students don’t leave campus. At schools where students leave campus without approval, they can face punishment, including detention.

While the bulk of walkouts are taking place in high schools and middle schools, university students are also participating.

At the University of Virginia, where Sarah Kenny is student council president, the threat of violence has felt raw since August clashes between white supremacists and counterprotesters turned deadly in Charlottesville. Many students have been worried about armed extremists since then, she said. “In the past year, I felt a very dramatic shift in the sense of fear,” she said.
Kenny is expecting more than 1,000 students and faculty members to walk out of classes Wednesday.

“I haven’t seen a protest or demonstration like this in my time at U-Va.,” Kenny said. “I’m anticipating it might be the biggest in decades.”

[ How a white-supremacist rally and protests turned deadly ]

In front of the school’s iconic Rotunda, the chapel bell will ring 17 times in memory of those who were killed in Florida.

Lauren Osborne plans to be a teacher after she graduates from Wayne State College in a few years. It’s sad, she said, that she also has to plan what she would do if a shooter entered her classroom.

In this rural and conservative part of Nebraska, she said, gun control is controversial. “Plenty of ranchers I know use AR-15s because it’s a very customizable gun,” she said. “Plenty of people I know use those rifles every day in their work.”

On Wednesday, she will go to her 10 a.m. literature class wearing orange, set her books down and then walk out of the room with a sign. She has asked other students to join the protest, by handing out papers explaining the effort, posting on Facebook and on Snapchat. Some of her friends pushed back on Snapchat, she said, saying gun laws in the United States work well.

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But she hopes many other students will join her. “Gun violence needs to be stopped in this country.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/edu ... 60d1c7af25
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: The Better Nature of Humanity Will Prevail

Postby minime » Wed Mar 14, 2018 11:43 am

seemslikeadream » Thu Feb 08, 2018 7:46 am wrote:This place needs examples of the better nature of humanity.....so here's the thread

thanks Blue for the idea

for every negative story I post I will contribute to this thread


You're about 10,000 behind.

Great thread though.
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Re: The Better Nature of Humanity Will Prevail

Postby seemslikeadream » Wed Mar 14, 2018 11:45 am

story of my RI life ...always a criticism.....no matter what I post here

always a brides maid...never a bride
Last edited by seemslikeadream on Wed Mar 14, 2018 11:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: The Better Nature of Humanity Will Prevail

Postby minime » Wed Mar 14, 2018 11:50 am

seemslikeadream » Wed Mar 14, 2018 9:45 am wrote:story of my RI life ...always a criticism.....no matter what I post here


I try to temper my critical observations with compliments, when they are warranted, as I did.

It's part of the better nature of humanity.
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Re: The Better Nature of Humanity Will Prevail

Postby seemslikeadream » Wed Mar 14, 2018 11:51 am

yea I love the passive/agressive

or is that aggressive/passive :bigsmile

it's definitely part of the nature of humanity.



damn now I have to go and find something better.....again


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgzQi88YQ-s

Nothing I do is good enough for you

Got a kick for a dog
Beggin' for Love
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: The Better Nature of Humanity Will Prevail

Postby seemslikeadream » Wed Mar 14, 2018 1:10 pm

Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: The Better Nature of Humanity Will Prevail

Postby minime » Wed Mar 14, 2018 1:20 pm

seemslikeadream » Wed Mar 14, 2018 9:51 am wrote:damn now I have to go and find something better.....again


You set the bar too high. Limbo!

One in ten would be admirable, brilliant.

Have you seen the new 3d printers that print cement houses for the 3rd world?

Sign me up!
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Re: The Better Nature of Humanity Will Prevail

Postby seemslikeadream » Wed Mar 14, 2018 1:22 pm

Over 150 colleges are telling high schools students it’s OK if they get suspended for peacefully protesting gun violence, it won’t impact their admission

Student speaks in front of the Capitol on #NationalWalkoutDay: “Their right to own an assault rifle does not outweigh our right to live. The adults have failed us. This is in our hands now, & if any elected official gets in our way, we will vote them out.”

Image

The school walkout isn't just happening in the United States
Image

Students from the Walworth Barbour American International School in Even Yehuda, Israel walk out of class
(CNN)Hours before the National School Walkout began in the United States, students in other countries got up from their desks to protest gun violence.

Tanzania

Image
Students at the International School of Tanganyika in Tanzania hold a walkout Wednesday, March 14, 2018.

At the International School of Tanganyika in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, students and teachers used the walkout as an opportunity to talk about gun violence and US politics.

"We are lucky to live in a country that is relatively (civilian) gun-free, so it's not something our students have to think about," said Courtney Park, a teacher and librarian. "But they are aware of the school shootings in the USA, and some understand the greater contexts of the NRA and its influence in politics."

A generation shaped by gun violence plans to make itself heard today
Some conversations included students' sense of "how lucky they are" that guns aren't a part of their everyday lives, Park said, noting that about a dozen of the school's teachers, plus the principal, are American.

Another teacher wanted to send the message to students and teachers in Parkland, Florida -- where a massacre a month ago sparked the walkout movement -- that they are not alone.
'WE WANT CHANGE': Scenes from the student walkout to demand stricter gun control laws
"This is not a problem in one school with a limited effect, said Pinckney Steiner, who teaches science. "The conversation is international and includes people of many nationalities. My hope is that the governors of all states, the representatives and senators from all states will listen to us and know that change is needed. The world is listening."

Israel
Image


The walkout at Walworth Barbour American International School in Even Yehuda, Israel, was organized by three students, including Eduard Štrébl.

"I was inspired to organize this walkout because I watched the movement get born online and it moved me. It touched me deeply to hear about this," said Štrébl, a senior.

"I'm from Prague, Czech (Republic), and I'm not American, but to see an epidemic of school shootings in a developed country when it's so easy to limit such things, to see that there is nothing being done against that, that inspired me to organize the walkout here," he said.

Iceland

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Students at the International School of Iceland took part in the walkout, but cold rain kept them indoors.


The walkout just happened to coincide with the International School of Iceland's lessons on world events.

Parkland shooting survivor Emma González has more Twitter followers than the NRA
"This idea for us to participate in the walkout came recently during a current events discussion and a discussion on children's rights around the world," said Justin Shouse, who teaches fifth and sixth grades.

Students there also had been studying people younger than 25 who are changing the world. That now includes Emma Gonzalez, the Parkland shooting survivor who has become one of the faces of the #NeverAgain movement.

The Icelandic school's protest did hit a snag, however. "If you are wondering why we are still in school, the Icelandic weather did not cooperate with the walkout today," Shouse said, adding that it was cold, windy and raining.

Great Britain

Image

Students at the American School in London hold their walkout.

Students at the American School in London congregated in a nearby park, held a banner and gave speeches during their walkout.

"The American School in London has not taken a position regarding the rationale behind the student-generated protest, but as always, we uphold our students' right to a voice and an opinion, and commend their courage to act, their desire to effect change, and their efforts to make schools throughout the world safe places to learn," Lydia Condon, the school's communications coordinator, told CNN. "We believe this is a great opportunity for students to think about the power of their voices and their actions to bring about change in the world."
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/14/world/sc ... index.html
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: The Better Nature of Humanity Will Prevail

Postby seemslikeadream » Wed Mar 14, 2018 4:23 pm


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9siE1tHezY



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqkmwSC0D3U
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: The Better Nature of Humanity Will Prevail

Postby seemslikeadream » Thu Mar 15, 2018 8:22 am

Meet ‘Steve,’ a Totally New Kind of Aurora

March 14, 2018
Canadian citizen scientist photographers spotted a fleeting type of aurora not seen before, dubbed “Steve,” and scientists have started working out what’s causing them.
Image
Picture of an aurora
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Steve seen with the Milky Way over Childs Lake, Manitoba.


Photograph by Krista Trinder
While the northern and southern lights have dazzled watchers of the night sky for millennia, vigilant citizen scientist photographers found another type of aurora over the past few years: a short-lived shimmering purple ribbon of plasma. Their intriguing discovery drew the attention of space scientists, who have just begun to study them.

“Dedicated aurora chasers, especially from Alberta, Canada, were out in the middle of the night, looking north and taking beautiful photos. Then farther south they happened to see a faint narrow purple arc as well,” says Elizabeth MacDonald, a space physicist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. There’s different physics behind those purple aurora, she says.

MacDonald led a team who observed the aurora by sending one of the European Space Agency’s Swarm satellites through it. The results suggest they’re a manifestation of accelerated and heated charged particles coming from the sun that interact with a particular part of the Earth’s magnetic field in the ionosphere. The team published their findings in Science Advances Wednesday.

The citizen scientists weren’t sure about what they’d seen, so they called the strange aurora structure “Steve.” The name caught on, and MacDonald and her team kept it, proposing the backronym Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement (STEVE). While scientists had known about lower-latitude currents of charged particles for decades, they had no idea that they could produce auroras visible to the eye. But now that people have smartphones and digital cameras more sensitive than what scientists had back then, they can pick out these rare aurora, which last only about an hour.


What Makes STEVE Unique?

As opposed to a red, green, or yellow aurora with a wispy, curtain-like shape (see photos), STEVE appears as a ribbon across the sky in a mauve or purplish color. It’s sometimes combined with unstable, smaller green picket fence-like features. In the past, some people mistakenly called these aurora phenomena “proton arcs,” but STEVE is narrower and with clearer structure to it.

Instead, MacDonald and her colleagues associate STEVE with something called “subauroral ion drift.” This happens farther south, at about 60 degrees above the equator, where the alignment of the global electric and magnetic fields makes ions and electrons flow rapidly in the east-west direction, heating them in the process. The aurora seem to be seasonal, not appearing in winter, and they coincide with space weather—charged particles spewed out by the sun.

“Because this is a new way of observing a phenomenon linked to space, it provides a new way to study it,” says Vassilis Angelopoulos, a space physicist at UCLA not involved in the study. “Citizen scientists can also be involved in triangulating them and determining their altitudes.” (Learn what happens when the Earth’s magnetic pole switches.)

Image
The aurora known as Steve is seen over Lake Minnewanka in Alberta.


Photograph by Paulo Fedozzi
Now with more interest in these aurora, MacDonald and other scientists plan to study them further to figure out what’s causing them, while citizen scientists will be on the lookout. They can continue to play a role, because if they glimpse one from different locations, scientists can use those observations to infer where and how high up it is.

Amateur astronomers can try to spot one in northern regions like Alberta, Montana, or Michigan, or in the southern hemisphere in New Zealand. MacDonald suggests downloading the app for her citizen science project, Aurorasaurus, which alerts people when the aurora are seen.

Citing a similarity to the rich history of contributions from citizen scientists in ornithology, MacDonald adds, “Finding STEVE is like discovering a new species of bird.”
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/201 ... 97=1#close
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Re: The Better Nature of Humanity Will Prevail?

Postby chump » Sun Mar 18, 2018 3:36 pm


https://electrek.co/2018/03/14/tesla-bi ... -colorado/

Tesla bids for a new world’s largest Powerpack battery system in Colorado
Fred Lambert Mar 4, 2018

Earlier this year, we reported on Xcel Energy, an electric utility company operating across the Midwest, Colorado and several other states, requesting bids for major renewable energy and storage projects in Colorado.

Some of the bids for standalone battery systems as well as batteries with solar and wind installations were among the best seen to date.
Now, Xcel has confirmed the companies placing the bids on the projects, including Tesla and NextEra Energy for standalone battery projects.

Tesla refused to comment on the project since it’s just in the proposal phase at this point, but Xcel’s documents show that it would become the biggest Powerpack project in the world if the electric utility decides to greenlight the proposal.

In South Australia, Tesla’s 100MW/ 129MWh Powerpack project is known as “the most powerful battery system in the world” and while this proposal in Colorado would not be as powerful with a power capacity of 75 MW, it would be able to run for 4 hours, which would require a much bigger energy capacity of 300 MWh.



It would be a major energy storage project that would represent twice the energy capacity that Tesla deployed during the entire last quarter. It would consist of as many as 1,500 Powerpack 2 battery systems.

Tesla calls the project ‘Forrest Lake’, which likely means that it is located in Forrest Lake, Colorado – just west of Colorado Springs and about 100 miles outside of Denver.

The majority of the electricity produced in Colorado currently comes from coal and natural gas, but they are increasingly adding renewable energy sources and energy storage could facilitate the use of the latter and make the overall grid more efficient and stable…
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