DAILY QUICK READ - SEPTEMBER 22, 2016

200 Miles of Lightning

Not only awesome, but events like this cause scientist to rethink their definitions of natural events. 

Scientists have just observed the longest lightning bolt on record by a long shot. The lightning was spotted in Oklahoma, stretching almost from one edge to the other of the state.

The United Nation’s World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) officially made the announcement, stating that it easily beats the previous US record at 321 km (200 miles). In fact, it’s so long and it lasted for so long that it might force us rethink our understanding of lightning. Meteorologists believed lightning peaked up after 1 second, but this one lasted several seconds.

Centuries of Drought

The mechanisms of global warming could result in extensive droughts in California.  Droughts that make the current five-year dry spell nothing more than a footnote. 

Authors of the study, published Thursday in the online journal Scientific Reports, cautioned that it remains uncertain whether climate change driven by greenhouse gas emissions will affect ocean dynamics in the same way as past climatic shifts.

The mechanics of global warming, caused by a rise in heat-trapping gases, differ from past warming related to changes in the Earth’s orbit, solar radiation or decreased volcanic activity.

“We don’t know how the Pacific Ocean is going to respond,” said Glen MacDonald, the paper’s lead author and a UCLA geography professor who studies climate change. “The climate models which we use … are very, very poor in predicting what is going to happen to the Pacific.”

Some global warming studies predict that Northern California could grow wetter. And a 2014 study co-authored by UCLA climate scientist Alex Hall concluded that overall rainfall amounts in Southern California won’t change much in coming decades.   

Nonetheless, MacDonald said his paper is a warning that “we simply cannot take off the table the possibility that the eastern Pacific will cool relative” to western ocean waters “and we’ll have La Niña-like conditions exacerbating aridity in California.”

Subversive Art in Service of Conservation

Imagine a landscape painting reminiscent of the Hudson River School and then step back to see that the work is painted on the sliced cross section of a once living tree.  That’s Alison Moritsugu’s work.  Both single pieces and elaborate landscapes made up of dozens of painted cross sections that provide a stunning visual sense of both beauty and devastation.

Art, by its expressive nature and use of symbols that can be interpreted in one way or another, can be a political act that influences the viewer into internalizing a certain ideology. So it was with American landscape paintings of the 18th and 19th centuries, which depicted bucolic sceneries of the New World that seemed like an empty Eden, perfect for colonization. But as we know, in reality the so-called New World was already populated by the indigenous peoples of this continent, and the gradual takeover of ancestral lands, large-scale disenfranchisement of millions and the negative environmental impact of colonization is something that these soft, pastoral paintings of the era conveniently overlook or romanticize.

Moritsugu's brush skillfully recalls the aesthetic style of these landscape painters of yore, yet simultaneously hints at a kind of historical greenwashing of America's colonial past. There is a deliberate, jarring contrast between the idealized, painted vision of nature and the viciously sliced section of tree it sits upon, prompting us to question the motives behind these images -- past and present -- that many of us so eagerly consume.

 “The Eagles, the Eagles Are Coming”

Is this a solution seeking a problem or do the Dutch have more concern over Sauron’s drones that we have here in the United States?   Or are the Dutch doing some research work for Amazon’s competitors?   

The Dutch National Police (DNP) plans to launch the most metal anti-drone program in existence: they will train bald eagles to take down flying unmanned threats. They’re also planning to equip them with armored talons.

It’s going to be a world-first for law enforcement, DNP officials say. In a statement released on Sept. 13, they announced that the DNP is the only police force in the world at this time who will include birds of prey in its done defense arsenal. The announcement comes at the end of a one-year testing partnership between the DNP and Guard from Above, a private company based in the Hague that trains raptors to attack drones in flight.

The tests were so promising that the police force recently purchased juvenile bald eagles which it plans to train for this purpose. The birds have a wingspan of around 3.3 feet (1 meter) right now, but they’ll grow to between 5.9 to 7.5 feet (1.8-2.3 m) in adulthood. That’s a lot of bird, and it seems they’re naturally out to get drones in the first place.