Category Archives: Reviews
Science: Dead Trees Giving Off CO2, Massive Stars, Melting Ice & Biodiversity
How insects help release carbon stored in forests, and the upcoming biodiversity summit COP 15.
In this episode:
00:44 Fungi, insects, dead trees and the carbon cycle
Across the world forests play a huge role in the carbon cycle, removing huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But when those trees die, some of that carbon goes back into the air. A new project studies how fast dead wood breaks down in different conditions, and the important role played by insects.
Research Article: Seibold et al.
09:37 Research Highlights
Massive stars make bigger planets, and melting ice moves continents.
Research Highlight: Why gassy planets are bigger around more-massive stars
Research Highlight: So much ice is melting that Earth’s crust is moving
12:04 The UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity
After several delays, the fifteenth Conference of the Parties (COP 15) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, is now slated to take place next year. Even communicating the issues surrounding biodiversity loss has been a challenge, and reaching the targets due to be set at the upcoming meeting will be an even bigger one.
Editorial: The scientific panel on biodiversity needs a bigger role
19:32 Briefing Chat
We discuss some highlights from the Nature Briefing. This time, cannibal cane toads and a pterosaur fossil rescued from smugglers.
Nature News: Australia’s cane toads evolved as cannibals with frightening speed
Research Highlight: A plundered pterosaur reveals the extinct flyer’s extreme headgear
National Geographic: Stunning fossil seized in police raid reveals prehistoric flying reptile’s secrets
Analysis: Is America In Another Housing Bubble?
Home prices in the U.S. have climbed at a record pace during the pandemic. The median home price reached over $363,000 in June 2021, a 23.4% increase from 2020. Many of the houses are being sold above their asking price, often entirely in cash with bidding wars becoming the new norm to weed out the competition. So is America currently in another housing bubble and what are the signs that can help investors predict an oncoming crash?
Views: The Scientist Magazine – Sep 2021
Diabetes: Understanding Insulin And Islets (Video)
Type 1 and type 2 diabetes are characterized by increased blood glucose levels. They affect almost half a billion people around the globe, and this number is projected to rise as we reach the middle of the century. In most individuals, blood glucose levels are kept within a healthy range by a hormone called insulin, which is secreted by the pancreas, but this fine-tuned regulation can go wrong in type 1 and type 2 diabetes. In this animation, we lay out our current understanding of these diseases and explore active areas of research that aim to restore the body’s blood glucose control.
Read more in https://www.nature.com/articles/d4285…
Views: Hi-Tech Factory-Built Portable Micro Homes From ‘MICROHAUS’
MicroHaus structures are portable and easy to transport. You can rapidly respond to changing circumstances and environments and change your rental business location in hours.
MicroHaus’ natural wood and fabric interiors are durable and beautiful. Designed in Europe and crafted in the USA, the interior elements are also a sign of our modern times.
These homes are energy efficient with low operating costs. They are durable and made from eco-friendly materials that are safe for you and the environment. Back-up power, a large water tank, and our Cloud Self-Diagnosis system make each one perfectly sustainable.
Views: ‘Richard Chopping: The Original Bond Artist’
In April 1956, at the suggestion of his friend Francis Bacon, Richard Chopping took the society hostess Ann Fleming to see some of his trompe l’oeil paintings, which were then on show at the Arthur Jeffress Gallery in Mayfair. Impressed by these pictures, Fleming invited the artist to meet her husband, Ian, who was looking for someone to provide dust-jacket illustrations for his James Bond novels.
31 AUGUST 2021
Chopping was immediately offered the job, and his striking designs remain the work for which he is best known and are, for many collectors, the reason the novels are particularly prized.
As this small but imaginatively curated exhibition demonstrates, there was a great deal more to Chopping than James Bond. Nevertheless, the highly detailed, finely executed and often macabre paintings he produced for Fleming are characteristic of his work as a whole. Born in Essex in 1917, Chopping moved to London at the age of 18 with little idea of what he wanted to do, but soon got a job on the magazine Decorations of the Modern Home.
VIEWS: TUFTS ‘HEALTH & NUTRITION LETTER’ (SEP ’21)
Reviews: Global Jihad, Fundamental Physics, Britain’s Pheasant Revolt
A selection of three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week, after Afghanistan, where next for global jihad?, Why Fundamental physics is humanity’s most extraordinary achievement (9:33) And pheasants revolt in Britain (14:51)
Analysis: How America’s $2 Trillion Afghanistan War Ended In Chaos (CNBC)
Twenty years of war for the United States and coalition partners in Afghanistan ended with the collapse of the Afghan government after U.S. troops withdrew from most of the country. The rapid advance of the Taliban forced an evacuation of more than 100,000 people from Afghanistan over the course of the last few weeks, and led to the deaths of 13 U.S. service members. Here’s how the fall of Afghanistan happened so quickly, and what’s next for the war-torn country.
Boomers Daily 