Author: Organikos

Bridging Art & Science

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Detail of the cover of the October 2013 issue of SciArt in America, showing the “Observe” exhibition at Williamson Gallery in Pasadena (photograph by Steven A. Heller/Art Center College of Design)

Detail of the cover of the October 2013 issue of SciArt in America, showing the “Observe” exhibition at Williamson Gallery in Pasadena (photograph by Steven A. Heller/Art Center College of Design)

This is an appropriate follow up, of sorts, to the plea in favor of liberal arts, humanities and the like:

It’s no revelation that science and art have long been linked, the curiosity about the workings of the world aligned with artistic creativity. Recently, however, there seems to be more of a movement towards connecting the two worlds into a tighter community. Continue reading →

Solar’s Messy Compromises

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BrightSource Energy's Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in the Mojave Desert. Photograph: Isaac Brekken/Washington Post

BrightSource Energy’s Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in the Mojave Desert. Photograph: Isaac Brekken/Washington Post

It’s not easy being green.  Even seeming no-brainers like this solar initiative requires complicated tradeoffs between one environmental objective and another:

…The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System will send that power across California, the Golden State, early this year, becoming the largest solar plant in the world to concentrate the sun’s rays to produce electricity. Such utility-sized solar plants are beginning to appear across the US, with 232 under construction, in testing or granted permits, many in the south-west and California, says the Edison Electric Institute, which represents utilities. The scale of the largest plants is difficult to imagine in the eastern part of the country, where a relative lack of available open land and unobstructed sunlight have limited solar facilities to perhaps a tenth the size of the West’s plants. In the west, ample sun, wide-open spaces, financial incentives, falling costs and state mandates have made big solar plants possible…

…But even as the largest plants are helping utilities meet state requirements for renewable energy, the appetite for them may be waning, say experts. The next phase of solar development – especially in the east – may feature smaller projects located closer to cities. Environmental groups want regulators to look at sites such as landfills and industrial zones before allowing construction in largely undisturbed environments such as deserts. Continue reading →

Jaipur Literature Festival’s Guest From The New Yorker

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Courtesy of Sukruti Anah Staneley. Jonathan Shainin.

Courtesy of Sukruti Anah Staneley. Jonathan Shainin.We link to the New Yorker frequently and to The Caravan occasionally, so we are happy to share a link to a story that provides an intersection to both:

We link to the New Yorker frequently and to The Caravan occasionally, so we are happy to share a link to a story that provides an intersection to both:

A Conversation With: Jonathan Shainin, Newyorker.com News Editor

By MAX BEARAK

Jonathan Shainin was the senior editor at The Caravan, an English-language long-form journalism magazine, for three years before leaving India in October to become the news editor at The New Yorker’s website, where he commissions and edits both domestic and international news stories.

Continue reading →

A Drone By Any Other Name

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Drones are generally not pleasant news references. Occasionally, however, there are surprises. Thanks to Reuters for this news on nature photography’s latest tech breakthrough:

BeetleCopter, the low-cost alternative for wildlife photography (2:24)

Jan. 16 – A British photographer and entrepreneur has developed drone technology for shooting documentary-quality wildlife footage at extremely low cost. Will Burrard-Lucas has sold models of his earlier invention – the ground-level BeetleCam – to other budding wildlife photographers, and hopes to do the same with his BeetleCopter.

Watch, Weep, Read, Wonder, Share

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A synopsis of this documentary is here:

Blackfish tells the story of Tilikum, a performing killer whale that killed several people while in captivity. Along the way, director-producer Gabriela Cowperthwaite compiles shocking footage and emotional interviews to explore the creature’s extraordinary nature, the species’ cruel treatment in captivity, the lives and losses of the trainers and the pressures brought to bear by the multi-billion dollar sea-park industry. Continue reading →

Classics-R-Us

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PRIVATE COLLECTION/KEN WELSH/THE BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY. Fourteenth-century Florentine poet Petrarch so loved the classical authors that he imagined conversations with them.

PRIVATE COLLECTION/KEN WELSH/THE BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY. Fourteenth-century Florentine poet Petrarch so loved the classical authors that he imagined conversations with them.

Among all the topics we survey, link to and write about on this site, the classics are if anything underrepresented relative to their importance in matters of community, collaboration and conservation. History is probably the most visible, thanks to Seth’s recent series on Iceland. Book reviews and shout outs to great professors are also visible with some frequency. Maybe enough, maybe not. Anyway, once more to the trenches, on the side of the humanities but not against practical considerations; the liberal arts matter to our future, not just to our past as this essay reaffirms, so let’s not lose them:

In 2011, the University of California at Los Angeles decimated its English major. Such a development may seem insignificant, compared with, say, the federal takeover of health care. It is not. What happened at UCLA is part of a momentous shift in our culture that bears on our relationship to the past—and to civilization itself. Continue reading →

Windows For Bird Conservation

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Thanks to Conservation Magazine‘s weekly newsfeed for this briefing on bird-friendly building practices:

The infrastructure that provides people with essential services sometimes has a surprisingly large side effect on other species. Seemingly benign buildings may be one of the deadliest serial killers.

People have long observed birds collide with windows at their home or office. The cumulative effect of all those collisions across America has previously been estimated to range widely from 100 million to 1 billion birds killed a year. A new study to be published in  The Condor analyzed previous studies and datasets for a clearer consensus. The result, even with some uncertainty remaining, was still a whopping 365 to 988 million birds. Continue reading →

Prehistoric Kerala Rock Art

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Deep meanings: A newly discovered anthropomorphic motif on a rock in the Thovari hills near the Edakkal caves in Wayanad.

Deep meanings: A newly discovered anthropomorphic motif on a rock in the Thovari hills near the Edakkal caves in Wayanad.

The Hindu reports today on a discovery in Wayanad, where Raxa Collective hopes to offer travelers cultural heritage conservation experiences in the near future:

This is the first time an anthropomorphic figure, a recurring motif of pre-historic rock arts sites in the world, has been reported from the site.

An anthropomorphic figure has been discovered among the prehistoric petroglyphs (rock engravings) on the Thovari hills near Edakkal caves in the Wayanad district of Kerala.

Continue reading →

2014 Jaipur Literature Festival

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Sang Tan/Associated Press Author Jhumpa Lahiri with her book ‘The Lowland’ at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London on Oct. 13, 2013.

Sang Tan/Associated Press
Author Jhumpa Lahiri with her book ‘The Lowland’ at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London.

Thanks to India Ink for an overview:

The 2014 Jaipur Literature Festival, now in its ninth edition, kicks off in the state capital of Rajasthan on Friday. Over the course of five days, celebrated writers from India and abroad will talk about not just their books but also about the two World Wars, Afghanistan after the withdrawal of American troops, Himalayan languages and the making of modern China.

This year’s highlights include:

The festival starts with an inaugural keynote address on Friday at 10 a.m. by the Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen, who will also talk about the workings of democracy and human freedoms with John Makinson, chairman of Penguin Random House, in another session later that day at 2:15 p.m.

Read the whole article here.

Nothing Like Antiquities To Calm A Diplomatic Brouhaha

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A Vishnu-Lakshmi sandstone sculpture, one of three stolen from India, is seen during a repatriation ceremony of the artefacts at the Indian consulate in New York on Tuesday. Photo: Narayan Lakshman

A Vishnu-Lakshmi sandstone sculpture, one of three stolen from India, is seen during a repatriation ceremony of the artefacts at the Indian consulate in New York on Tuesday. Photo: Narayan Lakshman

For those contributors to Raxa Collective based in India, but of USA citizenship, it is no stretch to say that Indians in India have treated Americans in India with the same friendliness as ever, and then some, in spite of a recent diplomatic spat between the two countries (if you were not aware of it, don’t bother, as the storm appears to be passing).  Ladies and gentlemen of India, we salute you. Now, news of gentlemanly behavior on the part of authorities in the USA, with uncanny timing as it comes on the heels of that diplomatic problem.  The return of these antiquities is a seriously good thing on its own, but we would be happy to think that cultural heritage plays a role in improving relations between two countries:

The U.S. handover to India this week, of idols worth more than $1.5m stolen from temples in Rajasthan, and Bihar or West Bengal, marked what seemed to be a gradual thaw in bilateral frost following a month-long diplomatic crisis.

In a repatriation ceremony at the New York Consulate of India, where the diplomat at the centre of the crisis, Devyani Khobragade, used to work, the U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE)’s Homeland Security Investigations (HIS) on Tuesday returned two sandstone sculptures of “Vishnu and Lakshmi,” respectively weighing 159 and 272 kg. Continue reading →

Bees With Backpacks

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After a brief and minor lapse the Guardian is back on game. Albeit with a hint of Monty Python. Sometimes a serious ecological challenge has a solution with an unexpected look or a funny ring to it, and we appreciate that this story was deemed worthy:

Thousands of Australian honey bees have been fitted with tiny sensors in a study to help understand what is causing the precipitous collapse of colonies around the world.

About 5,000 bees will carry the 2.5mm x 2.5mm sensors, like hi-tech backpacks, for the next two months at the study site in Hobart. Continue reading →

Disrupting Education’s Status Quo

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Harvard Business Review offers this interview with the founder of Khan Academy, a non-profit educational initiative that has been succeeding the way many dot-com businesses succeed–the difference being that all the benefits accrue to students and their educational attainment around the world. Bravo, Mr. Khan:

…In the traditional academic model, you’re passive. You sit in a chair, and the teacher tries to project knowledge at you; some of it sticks, some of it doesn’t. That’s not an effective way to learn. Worse, it creates a mind-set of “you need to teach me,” so when you’re on your own, you think, “I can’t learn.” Anyone in any industry will tell you there’s new stuff to learn every week these days. So you have to say, “What information and people do I have at my disposal? What questions do I need to ask? How do I gauge whether I’ve really understood it?” Khan Academy is designed to give students that agency. If you want to get more tangible, I would say learn how to program a computer, more about the law, and definitely statistics… Continue reading →

$350,000 Conversation Piece

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A protest outside the Dallas Convention Centre against the auction of a black rhino hunting permit. Photograph: Tony Gutierrez/AP

A protest outside the Dallas Convention Centre against the auction of a black rhino hunting permit. Photograph: Tony Gutierrez/AP

This coverage in the Guardian provides an answer to the lingering question of how much good the killing of an endangered animal can do, but does not answer the fundamental question raised by this endeavor:

A permit to hunt an endangered African black rhino sold for $350,000 at a Dallas auction held to raise money for conservation efforts but criticised by wildlife advocates.

Steve Wagner, a spokesman for the Dallas Safari Club, which sponsored the closed-door event Saturday night, confirmed the sale of the permit for a hunt in the African nation of Namibia. He declined to name the buyer. Continue reading →

Conversation, Language Navigation, Identity

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Spoken

If more conversation is the goal, and as we have indicated we should put everything we have on the table regardless of how difficult the topic, then we should not add too many caveats. But after listening to this young man, we are tempted to create some rules for the game:

Phuc Tran grew up caught between two languages with opposing cultural perspectives: the indicative reality of Vietnamese and the power to image endless possibilities with English. In this personal talk, Tran explains how both shaped his identity. Continue reading →

Magyar’s Image-Making

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Magyar

One of the more interesting profiles of a photographer that we have seen in quite some time is located somewhere we had not seen until today. This excerpt is near the end, but we highly recommend the whole thing:

…A COUPLE OF MORNINGS after our first encounter, I arrange to meet Magyar at Alexanderplatz, one of Berlin’s busiest subway stations, for a demonstration of the Stainless project. I arrive at the height of rush hour, and wait for ten minutes at one end of the crowded platform before he appears. His long hair spills over his black parka, which is matched by black work boots, black jeans, and a black daypack. Continue reading →

Bees, Close Up, Thanks To Important Research, USA Taxpayers And Some Very Talented Photographers

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Bees are important.  You knew that.  We did not need to tell you.  But how many bee species are there in the world? Give it your best guess before reading further. And how different do those species look, one from another? We had no idea. We first encountered these images here so credit where due (we had recently started to wonder) for where we learned about these amazing photographs and the story behind them:

Sam Droege is head of the US Geological Survey Bee Inventory and Monitoring Laboratory in Maryland, and for the past seven years he and his team have been photographing bees and other insects to create online reference catalogues to help researchers identify the thousands of species across North America. Here is a selection of their work.

Then we did a search to learn more and found that they have been broadcast far and wide for some time.  Jordan G. Teicher, who writes about photography for Slate’s Behold blog, had what we thought was the best presentation of these so we chose the photo above from his post:

The photos of native bees and wasps taken at the U.S. Geological Survey Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab are used for scientific purposes, but they are created with an eye for artistry.

“I tell the interns and techs that when they are taking these pictures, they are artists,” lab chief Sam Droege said via email. “We have powwows over the pictures after they are taken to discuss lighting, positioning, and the perennial problems of bad bee hair and dirty specimens.” Continue reading →

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors, It Has Been Said

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mystery-picket-fence-1-600x399

The odd web-like structure that has captivated scientists. Photograph by Jeff Cremer, Solent News/Rex Features via AP

One of the myriad arguments in favor of wilderness conservation is that we do not know what we are losing when wild places are lost to development. Case in point with this story and image via National Geographic newswatch service:

Six months ago, visitors to the Peruvian Amazon discovered a mysterious picket fence structure nicknamed Silkhenge. Despite watching the structure for several days, naturalists at the Tambopata Research Center couldn’t figure out what type of animal (or fungus) was building it.

When scientist Troy Alexander first announced his find, all he had to show for his discovery was a series of intriguing photographs. He had no idea what Amazonian critter could have created the circular hideaway with a spoke-like outer wall. Continue reading →

Mumbai Makeover

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Courtesy of GVK. The check-in hall at the integrated Terminal T2 of the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai, Maharashtra.

Courtesy of GVK. The check-in hall at the integrated Terminal T2 of the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai, Maharashtra.

At least one non-Indian contributor to Raxa Collective remembers the Mumbai airport circa 1993, and many of our guests recall that old airport with something less than affection, so this news via India Ink is most welcome:

For anyone who has traveled through the shiny airport hubs of Asia like Hong Kong and Singapore, flying into Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai can deliver quite a shock. Continue reading →

Mastering Environmental Science

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Freshman Adarsh Jayakumar, ranked No. 2 among 18-year-old U.S. chess players, talks about his love of chess and his life at Cornell. Jayakumar is an environmental science major in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Freshman Adarsh Jayakumar, ranked No. 2 among 18-year-old U.S. chess players, talks about his love of chess and his life at Cornell. Jayakumar is an environmental science major in the College of Arts and Sciences.

In this 2.5 minute video (click the image above) a young man explains a remarkable decision: to forgo the professional opportunity he seems clearly well suited for in favor of another path which, as yet, he knows little about. As much as we appreciate chess, which he has mastered better than most players his own age, we appreciate his sense of adventure, and his decision to pursue mastery of environmental science instead of pursuing the more obvious path.