French girl becomes blind due to clouding of her lenses -
Beauty in a world beyond light -
A young German soldier avoids life in a coal mine -
Since childhood, he is fascinated by sending & capturing of messages beyond visible light -
Radio -
Their paths cross -
World War II, thus some harsh episodes -
An ultimately tense tale in a world hopefully gone by -
Looking for fresh food grown locally? The LocalHarvest online directory helps you find “over 30,000 family farms and farmers markets, along with restaurants and grocery stores that feature local food.” Over 7 million people search the directory yearly “to find local food, farm events, and family farmer-grown specialty products.” Using the sites Google Map, you can search by farm, farmers market, Grocery/Co-op, restaurant or more. You can also search by product, and best of all, by city or zip code.
Take a look and see what you can find. If you grow locally, get registered to be included.
Just started reading The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert, a writer for The New Yorker. (Her previous book was Field Notes from A Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change.)
The following few paragraphs from the Prologue give you an idea of the subject matter and her writing style. Here she traces our early history from our spread out of Africa to our modern ability to drill for energy and its Earth changing consequences:
“Although a land animal, our species – ever inventive – crosses the sea. It reaches islands inhabited by evolution’s outliers: birds that lay foot-long eggs, pig-sized hippos, giant skinks. Accustomed to isolation, these creatures are ill equipped to deal with the newcomers or their fellow travelers (mostly rats). Many of them, too, succumb.
The process continues, in fits and starts, for thousands of years, until the species, no longer so new, has spread to practically every corner of the globe. At this point, several things happen more or less at once that allow Homo sapiens, as it has come to call itself, to reproduce at an unprecedented rate. In a single century the population doubles; then it doubles again, and then again. Vast forests area razed. Humans do this deliberately, in order to feed themselves. Less, deliberately, they shift organisms from one continent to another, reassembling the biosphere.
Meanwhile, an even stranger and more radical transformation is under way. Having discovered subterranean reserves or energy, humans begin to change the composition of the atmosphere. This in turn, alters the climates and the chemistry of the oceans. Some plants and animals adjust by moving. They climb mountains and migrate toward the poses. But a great many- at first hundreds, then thousands, and finally perhaps millions – find themselves marooned. Extinction rates soar, and the texture of life changes.”
IMAGE: Daniel Schwen
Science World Report reviews a new study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association on snacking on muffins versus almonds in overweight middle-aged adults with elevated LDL cholesterol:
“While past evidence has shown that eating almonds can improve heart health, the researchers decided to investigate this phenomenon a bit further. They conducted 12-week, randomized, controlled clinical studies. In all, 52 overweight, middle-aged adults who had a high total and LDL cholesterol but were otherwise healthy participated. These volunteers ate cholesterol-lowering diets that were identical; the only difference is that one group was given a daily snack of 1.5 ounces of whole natural almonds, while the other group was given a banana muffin that provided the same number of calories.”
According to one of the authors:
“Our research found that substituting almonds for a high-carbohydrate snack improved numerous heart health risk factors, including the new finding that eating almonds reduced belly fat. Choosing almonds as a snack may be a simple way to help fight the onset of metabolic and cardiovascular diseases.”
The all-electric Chevy Bolt was announced today. With an expected range of 200 miles per charge, the Bolt should be ready for purchase in 2017. While many have called this a "Tesla killer," Business Insider sees it differently:
“The greatest obstacle to Tesla’s long-term success is not rival electric cars, but a global transportation infrastructure that is built for gasoline-powered cars rather than battery-electrics. For Tesla to crack the mass market, it needs other major automakers to invest heavily in electric-vehicle technology, including a network of charging stations that would allow for long road trips in battery-powered cars. That’s why the company opened its patents to competitors last year. At this stage in its growth, Tesla wants more rivals, not fewer. So should everyone who believes that burning fossil fuels is bad for the environment.”
What does Tesla think about the Bolt -
“We are always supportive of other manufacturers who bring compelling electric vehicles to the market. Tesla applauds Chevrolet for introducing the Bolt, and we are excited to learn more about the product.”