New Travel Guide Videos: ‘Sequoia And Kings Canyon National Parks’

Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks – From cloud-skimming sequoia trees to below-ground marble caves, this parkland is a treasure trove of natural splendor.

Sequoia National Park is adjacent to Kings Canyon National Park in California’s southern Sierra Nevada mountains. It’s known for its huge sequoia trees, notably the General Sherman Tree dominating the Giant Forest. The underground Crystal Cave features streams and striking rock formations. Moro Rock is a granite dome offering sweeping park views. Nearby is the Tunnel Tree, a toppled tree cut to accommodate the road.

Kings Canyon National Park is adjacent to Sequoia National Park in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. It’s known for its huge sequoia trees, notably the gigantic General Grant Tree in Grant Grove. To the east, Cedar Grove is surrounded by towering granite canyon walls. From here, trails lead to Zumwalt Meadow along the Kings River, and to Roaring River Falls. The park is home to rattlesnakes, bears and cougars. 

Science Podcasts: Citizen ‘Minipublics’, Zoologist Charles Turner & Cooking

First up, host Sarah Crespi talks to News Intern Cathleen O’Grady about the growing use of citizens’ assemblies, or “minipublics,” to deliberate on tough policy questions like climate change and abortion. Can random groups of citizens do a better job forming policy than politicians? 

Next, we feature the latest of a new series of insight pieces that revisit landmark Science papers. Sarah talks with Hiruni Samadi Galpayage Dona, a Ph.D. student at Queen Mary University of London, about Charles Turner, a Black zoologist who published multiple times in Science in the early 1900s. Despite being far ahead of his time in his studies of animal cognition, Turner’s work was long overlooked—due in large part to the many difficulties facing a Black man in academia at the turn of the century. Finally, in our monthly books segment, host Kiki Sanford chats with author Pia Sorensen about her new book: Science and Cooking: Physics Meets Food, From Homemade to Haute Cuisine. 

New Architecture Books: ‘Contemporary Houses’ – 100 Homes Over 2 Decades

This publication rounds up 100 of the world’s most interesting and pioneering homes designed in the past two decades, featuring a host of talents both new and established, including John Pawson,Shigeru BanTadao AndoZaha Hadid, Herzog & de Meuron, Daniel Libeskind, Alvaro Siza, and Peter Zumthor.

Accommodating daily routines of eating, sleeping, and shelter, as well as offering the space for personal experience and relationships, this is architecture at its most elementary and its most intimate.

Designing private residences has its own very special challenges and nuances for the architect. The scale may be more modest than public projects, the technical fittings less complex than an industrial site, but the preferences, requirements, and vision of particular personalities becomes priority. The delicate task is to translate all the emotive associations and practical requirements of “home” into a workable, constructed reality.

The author

Philip Jodidio studied art history and economics at Harvard, and edited Connaissance des Arts for over 20 years. His TASCHEN books include the Architecture Now! series and monographs on Tadao Ando, Santiago Calatrava, Renzo Piano, Jean Nouvel, Shigeru Ban, Richard Meier, and Zaha Hadid.

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2020 Election: The States With Most TV Ad Spending

The Trump and Biden campaigns are both spending hundreds of millions of dollars nationally on broadcast TV advertisements. FiveThirtyEight elections analyst Nathaniel Rakich looks at which states are seeing the biggest ad buys.

Website: http://fivethirtyeight.com/

Future Of Hospitals: ‘The New Pavilion At Penn Medicine – 2021’ (Video)

The new Pavilion at Penn Medicine will be one of the most state-of-the-art patient care facilities in the world when it opens in 2021.

Aviation Industry: ‘How Boeing Suppliers Plan To Survive Crisis’ (WSJ Video)

Boeing’s production cuts have sent shockwaves through the aviation industry, forcing suppliers to lay off thousands of employees. Tool Gauge reconfigured its operations just after opening a new facility in Tacoma, Wash., designed to manufacture Boeing parts.

Photo: Joel Winter for The Wall Street Journal

New Aerial Travel Videos: ‘Republic Of Columbia’

Filmed and Edited by: Andres Cortes

Colombia, officially Republic of Colombia, Spanish República de Colombia, country of northwestern South America. Its 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of coast to the north are bathed by the waters of the Caribbean Sea, and its 800 miles (1,300 km) of coast to the west are washed by the Pacific Ocean. The country is bordered by Panama, which divides the two bodies of water, on the northwest,  Venezuela and Brazil on the east, and Peru and Ecuador on the south. It is more than twice the size of France and includes the San Andrés y Providencia archipelago, located off the Nicaraguan coast in the Caribbean, some 400 miles (650 km) northwest of the Colombian mainland. The population is largely concentrated in the mountainous interior, where Bogotá, the national capital, is situated on a high plateau in the northern Andes Mountains.

Smart Technology: ‘The Internet Of Bodies’ (IoB)

Internet-connected “smart” devices are increasingly available in the marketplace, promising consumers and businesses improved convenience and efficiency. Within this broader Internet of Things (IoT) lies a growing industry of devices that monitor the human body and transmit the data collected via the internet.

This development, which some have called the Internet of Bodies (IoB), includes an expanding array of devices that combine software, hardware, and communication capabilities to track personal health data, provide vital medical treatment, or enhance bodily comfort, function, health, or well-being. However, these devices also complicate a field already fraught with legal, regulatory, and ethical risks. In this video,

RAND mathematician Mary Lee examines this emerging collection of human body–centric and internet-connected technologies; explores their benefits, security and privacy risks, and ethical implications; surveys the nascent regulatory landscape for these devices and the data they collect; and makes recommendations to balance IoB risks and rewards.

Read more about the Internet of Bodies here: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_re…

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