These are cut by lasers on mounting board. Fascinating and beautiful. Each map takes about 2 hours to cut.
Jane Abbott Lighty, 77, and Pete-e Petersen, 85, were the first couple to get married in Seattle, Washington last night after the...
2012 Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar
This object, known as Messier 54, could be just another globular cluster, but this dense and faint...
This is believed to be the only photo ever taken of the iceberg that sank the Titanic. And it’s for sale.
Amazing photos today on Twitter #frifotos. This one is from @implausibleblog . #frifotos is a trend started by @epsteintravels . This week’s theme is Shadow. Go tweet your own favorite photo of brilliant shadows using #frifotos, or post them to tumblr share with us at Public Radio International!
A view of the CCTV and TVCC towers on the afternoon of January 12, the afternoon of January 13 and one week before the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics in 2008. Beijing saw previously unheard of levels of pollution over the weekend with air pollution being so bad it was “off scale,” according to the air pollution monitor at the U.S. Embassy. (Photos courtesy of Chas Pope/Flickr)
Beijing was wrapped in a suffocating blanket of smog over the weekend.
Pollution, according to air monitors at the U.S. Embassy, was so bad the index used to measure such things doesn’t even go as high as the monitoring equipment recorded. But people who were outside didn’t need fancy equipment to know that the air was bad, they merely had to look up - or out. They were lucky to see the top of buildings, or even a couple blocks down the streets.
For those commenting on smog blur in the pic, pollution only 357 on air quality index then, compared w/ 775 sat night! twitpic.com/bv7c9h
@angshah Here you go. yfrog.com/oe3jwpinj
@angshah 3.45pm, Sanlitun area. That’s facing east. No filter, and I opened the screen on the window to take this.
With air toxic even by Chinese standards, Weibo weighs in: 33.5 million posts on “pollution,” 26m on “fog”, 4.7m on “PM 2.5.” And counting.
01-14-2013 03:00; PM2.5; 523.0; 515; Beyond Index
PRI’s The World’s Mary Kay Magistad has lived in Beijing for 14 years and says that this is the worst air quality she can recall. In past years, the government has denied the problem of air pollution, but more recently began releasing more air quality data and expanding programs to reduce emissions.
Of course, China isn’t the first country to deal with bad pollution.
In an interview this spring with Yale Environment 360, the environmentalist Ma Jun connected his cause in Beijing to past efforts in London and Los Angeles:
Many Western cities have gone through a very polluted stage. London used to suffer very badly from “London fog,” which was really smog. At first, people didn’t know the major source of air pollution was burning coal; then they realized it was a big problem, and London gradually phased out coal-fired power plants within city limits. That greatly reduced the discharge of sulfur dioxide, starting in the 1950s. Los Angeles faced a different type of air pollution — it was less about coal and more about car emissions. The way that L.A. addressed air-quality problems was by increasing mileage standards and fuel quality, and also by improving the emissions-control devices installed on cars.
“The Great Smog of 1952” in London led to Britain’s Clean Air Act. Recently, California also enacted a cap and trade program that will require about 350 companies to pay for their carbon dioxide emissions.
Chinese officials are pointing to a phenomenon known as a temperature inversion as the cause for this record-breaking pollution. That too has a historical precedent in the western world. In Donora, Pa., in 1948, some 20 people died and hundreds were hospitalized when a temperature inversion trapped pollution in the small city. The situation was so bad, night practically turned to day; environmentalists trace the aftermath of Donora to the creation of the U.S. Clean Air Act.
And while there are no figures available about whether this weekend’s incident led to any direct deaths, a Greenpeace study found more than 8,000 premature deaths each year can be traced to bad air in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Xi’an.
Draft of FDR’s “Day of Infamy” Speech. December 7, 1941.
A few hours after learning of the attacks on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dictated a short address to be delivered to a Joint Session of Congress the following day.
His handwritten revisions—visible in this December 7 draft of the speech—made the “Day of Infamy” speech one of the most memorable in American history.
Read more about the drafting of this significant speech.
–from the FDR Library
(via pbsthisdayinhistory)
Bashar Shglila captures life in the Libyan deserts, from the sky—-sundown.
This is Africa, our Africa
(via pritheworld)
In contrast to the newest USDA nutrition guide, the “Food Plate,” introduced in 2011 by Michelle Obama, this USDA 1943 “Basic Seven” wheel includes butter as one of the food groups and doesn’t include any suggestions on controlling portions. See a slideshow of historic food guides from the USDA here .
“Life in Color: Purple” – National Geographic’s exquisite gallery of photos depicting the purple places in our world.
FOUR MORE YEARS President Obama at campaign headquarters in Chicago early Wednesday morning. (Photo: Doug Mills / New York Times)
What are you thinking right now, with President Barack Obama winning re-election?
(via thedustatdawn)
An interesting snapshot of who actually voted in the last Presidential election. Not a lot surprising here - older, richer, married better educated folks turn out in the highest numbers. Oh, and women. But you may be surprised to see what states had the highest and lowest turnout.
Just 54 days til Election Day. What, if anything, do you think will be different about these numbers come November?
via votifi
