First a note to all. There is a new category shown in the sidebar, Free Stuff. It will be at that category you will find free stuff from me, or from others. Now and then I do post some free stuff like scripts, ebooks, and so forth. I have quite a lot to give away and it will be done a bit at a time. So do check that category and do check back on this blog for the free stuff.
###
The world’s oldest living trees, bristlecone pines each stand on their own pedestal of dolomite rock, high in the Californian mountains All photos by Nick Paloukos
A chronicle of climates past and a portent of climates to come – the telling rings of the bristlecone pine.
No event, however momentous, leaves an everlasting imprint on the world. Take the cosmic background radiation, the faint electromagnetic afterglow of the Big Bang. It hangs, reassuringly, in every corner of our skies, the firmest evidence we have for the giant explosion that created our universe. But it won’t be there forever. In a trillion years’ time it is going to slip beyond what astronomers call the cosmic light horizon, the outer edge of the observable universe. The universe’s expansion will have stretched its wavelength so wide that it will be undetectable to any observer, anywhere. Time will have erased its own beginning.
On Earth, the past is even quicker to vanish. To study geology is to be astonished at how hastily time reorders our planet’s surface, filling its craters, smoothing its mountains and covering its continents in seawater. Life is often the fastest to disintegrate in this constant churn of water and rock. The speed of biological decomposition ensures that only the most geologically fortunate of organisms freeze into stone and become fossils. The rest dissolve into sediment, leaving the thinnest of molecular traces behind.
Part of what separates humans from nature is our striving to preserve the past, but we too have proved adept at its erasure. It was humans, after all, who set fire to the ancient Library of Alexandria, whose hundreds of thousands of scrolls contained a sizable fraction of classical learning. The loss of knowledge at Alexandria was said to be so profound that it set Western civilisation back 1,000 years. Indeed, some have described the library’s burning as an event horizon, a boundary in time across which information cannot flow.
The burning of books and libraries has perhaps fallen out of fashion, but if you look closely, you will find its spirit survives in another distinctly human activity, one as old as civilisation itself: the destruction of forests. Trees and forests are repositories of time; to destroy them is to destroy an irreplaceable record of the Earth’s past. Over this past century of unprecendented deforestation, a tiny cadre of scientists has roamed the world’s remaining woodlands, searching for trees with long memories, trees that promise science a new window into antiquity. To find a tree’s memories, you have to look past its leaves and even its bark; you have to go deep into its trunk, where the chronicles of its long life lie, secreted away like a library’s lost scrolls. This spring, I journeyed to the high, dry mountains of California to visit an ancient forest, a place as dense with history as Alexandria. A place where the heat of a dangerous fire is starting to rise.
Read it all, with more pictures, HERE.
###
CIA: The World Factbook “The World Factbook provides information on the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 267 world entities. Our Reference tab includes: maps of the major world regions, as well as Flags of the World, a Physical Map of the World, a Political Map of the World, and a Standard Time Zones of the World map.”
Auroras like the northern lights are caused by the interaction of energetic particles (electrons and protons) from outside the atmosphere with atoms of the upper atmosphere. Such interaction occurs in zones surrounding the Earth’s magnetic poles. During periods of intense solar activity, auroras occasionally extend to the middle latitudes; for example, the aurora borealis has been seen as far south as 40 latitude in the United States. – Provided by Reference.com
###
###
The price of inequality: Q&A; with Nobel economics winner Joseph Stiglitz
Joseph Stiglitz was awarded the Nobel Prize for economics in 2001 and is a member of the Berggruen Institute’s 21st Century Council. He spoke with Global Viewpoint Network editor Nathan Gardels about his new book, “The Price of Inequality.”
Nathan Gardels: What is the central thesis of your book, “The Price of Inequality”?
Joseph Stiglitz: My argument in the context of the current debate is that no large economy has ever recovered from recession through austerity. But more than that, the sharp rise in inequality – especially in the United States, which has the greatest inequality gap in the advanced countries – is holding us back. The lack of aggregate demand that has resulted from this inequality is a key factor hindering a return to growth.
Simply, those at the top where wealth has concentrated spend much less of their income than those at the bottom or in the middle. So, demand drops. If we want to restore growth, and therefore full employment and greater tax revenues, we need to address the underlying problem of inequality.
Gardels: And the cause of that inequality is what? Trade? Technological innovation? Tax policy?
MORE.
###
Abraham Lincoln: The Great Campaigner
The latest Lincoln boom—kicking off with the bicentennial of his birth in 2009 and the continuing sesquicentennial of the Civil War—shows no sign of abating. It may not even reach its apogee with the release immediately post-election of Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, a biopic starring Daniel Day-Lewis in the title role. Spielberg, according to a source familiar with the production, has deliberately withheld the film until the current, divisive presidential campaign is over in order to prevent Lincoln from being seized upon to score political points.
Abraham Lincoln – Lincoln’s ambition knew no rest. (Corbis (Photo manipulation by Gluekit))
But lifting Lincoln above the fray doesn’t remove him from politics. While the political Lincoln may be difficult for us to acknowledge at a time when politics and partisan commitments are widely denigrated, Lincoln’s presidency demonstrates that partisanship and political ruthlessness can be used to advance the highest ideals. And there were no clearer cases than during his 1864 battle for reelection (without which the slave-owning South would almost certainly have triumphed) and subsequent effort to pass the 13th Amendment, which at long last purged slavery from the Constitution. In the end, Lincoln became the master of events because he was the master of politics.
MORE.
###
How Financial Aid Letters Often Leave Students Confused and Misinformed
The financial aid award letters that colleges send to prospective students can be confusing: Many mix grants, scholarships and loans all under the heading of “Award,” “Financial Assistance,” or “Offered Financial Aid.” Some schools also suggest loans in amounts that families can’t afford.
Take Parent Plus loans, a federal program that allows families to take out as much as they need, after other aid is applied, to pay for their children’s college costs. As we recently reported with the Chronicle of Higher Education, Plus loans are remarkably easy to get. With minimal underwriting and no assessment of whether parents can actually afford the loans, families can end up overburdened by debt [1].
MORE.
###
HPV Vaccine Not a Gateway to Promiscuity
The human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine has been recommended for 11- and 12-year-old girls in the US since 2006, but opponents of the controversial guidelines have questioned whether being vaccinated could give young girls a false sense of security and encourage them to become sexually active or engage in risky sexual behavior. As it turns out, this is not the case. Data show that girls who receive the vaccine are no more likely than their unvaccinated peers to get other sexually transmitted infections or become pregnant, a strong indicator that both groups are engaging in similar levels of sexual activity.
###
###
The Recipe For Immortality
The yearning for immortality dates back at least to ancient times. As human brain size increased rapidly over the past million years, our ancestors began to think increasingly about the inevitability of death and the redemptive possibility of everlasting life. Ancient pharaohs, queens, and kings used every means to ensure their vestigial persistence through future ages. They had themselves enshrined in legends, songs, and poems; they had their remains preserved in vast pyramids.
Part of the reason for that yearning may lie in the fact that people already live so long and with such self-awareness. Our species is distinctive in its ability to remember and to predict future events based upon past experience. Before the invention of writing, and even afterward, reliable predictions required the presence of memories in a living person. People well past their reproductive years could add value to their tribe by remembering early warning signs of rare phenomena, such as drought, locusts, and disease.
MORE.
###
1957…..
###
READ.
###
