[Editor's note: Interactive map shows proposed renewable energy power plants and transmission lines in the United States and Canada. The print version by Martin Gamache and Sam Pepple is worth a look –– it composites the multiple themes into a single view, and compares with the current state of the power system in a separate map.]
Can we fix the infrastructure that powers our lives? By Joel Achenbach. Photograph by Joe McNally
We are creatures of the grid. We are embedded in it and empowered by it. The sun used to govern our lives, but now, thanks to the grid, darkness falls at our convenience. During the Depression, when power lines first electrified rural America, a farmer in Tennessee rose in church one Sunday and said—power companies love this story—”The greatest thing on earth is to have the love of God in your heart, and the next greatest thing is to have electricity in your house.” He was talking about a few lightbulbs and maybe a radio. He had no idea.
Juice from the grid now penetrates every corner of our lives, and we pay no more attention to it than to the oxygen in the air. Until something goes wrong, that is, and we’re suddenly in the dark, fumbling for flashlights and candles, worrying about the frozen food in what used to be called (in pre-grid days) the icebox. Or until the batteries run dry in our laptops or smart phones, and we find ourselves scouring the dusty corners of airports for an outlet, desperate for the magical power of electrons.
[Editor's note: Spoiler alert: "El Niño Modoki (Japanese for “similar but different”) triggers more landfalling storms in the Gulf of Mexico and the western Caribbean than normal, and more tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic than El Niño does. Another difference: Modoki’s precipitation patterns are the reverse of El Niño’s—making the American West, for instance, drier rather than wetter."]
Republished from National Geographic Magazine.
It used to be simpler. Whenever the surface waters of the equatorial Pacific turned warmer than normal in summer, climatologists would expect an El Niño year, then forecast when and where droughts, floods, and hurricanes might occur. But that was before a study by Georgia Tech scientists, led by Hye-Mi Kim, deciphered the effects of another pattern in which high temperatures are confined to the central Pacific (Click this link to expand the graphic). Now the already difficult field of atmospheric forecasting has become even trickier.
[Editor's note: That's what Russians say when they're not pulling your leg. This book from National Geographic has this and other intriguing idioms from around the world. It's beautifully illustrated by New Yorker cartoonist Julia Suits. Good for the holiday gift list. Thanks Jag!]
That’s what Russians say when they’re not pulling your leg.
From National Geographic Books by Jag Bhalla
A collection of 1,000 funny and intriguing expressions from around the world.
These odd sayings say a lot about how odd the human mind can be.
NPR “An Enchanting Tour” listen and read here
The Splendid Table on the food chapter listen and read here
PRI “A Banquet of foreign idioms” listen here
Guardian “On the joys of idioms” read here
Guardian quiz read here
“On language addiction (its our most ubiquitous mind altering drug) and the thrill of the novel (semantic ambush)” read here
Example Idioms
Not hanging noodles on your ears: Russian - not kidding
To live like a maggot in bacon: German – live in luxury
Like fingernail and dirt: Spanish, Mexico – well suited
Bang your butt on the ground: French - die laughing
Plucked like a chicken: Yiddish - exhausted
To bite the elbow: Russian – to cry over spilt milk
Smoke from 7 orifices of head: Chinese – to be furious
To become naked: Japanese – to go broke, poor
An ant milker: Arabic – a miser, tight wad
Give it to someone with cheese: Spanish - to deceive
Squeezer of limes: Hindi – self invited guest, idler
To break wind into silk: French - live the life of Riley
To reheat cabbage: Italian – rekindle an old flame
This week marks the 40th anniversary of the first human landing on Earth’s Moon, over 250,000 miles distant from our “mother ship”. Apollo 11 was launched into space July 16, 1969 and on July 20th Neil Alden Armstrong and Edwin Eugene ‘Buzz’ Aldrin, Jr., became the first humans to “moon walk” while fellow crew member Michael Collins orbited above.
This past January I published several blog posts (listed below) highlighting my friend Richard Furno’s involvement with the National Geographic “The Earth’ Moon” map which was published during this amazing time in history. Follow along with Richard’s first hand narration of how historic events shaped the map, the cutting edge science involved in assembling the photographic base material, and the many explanatory notes included on the final design. The wall map is a piece of art, please enjoy
This is “one gift I will definitely keep,” President Obama said when he was presented with a National Geographic Society map cabinet at the White House earlier this week.
Photo courtesy the White House
“The Obama family loves maps. I like the tactile feel of maps,” the President added, as he admired the cabinet that was leaning against the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.
Photo courtesy the White House
The presentation in the Oval Office Wednesday, June 10, was by National Geographic President and CEO John M. Fahey, Jr., (seen on the left in the picture above), Global Media President Tim Kelly (on the right), and Executive Vice President Terry Adamson (next to President Obama).
National Geographic Tradition
Fahey told Obama that the presentation of the map cabinet specially constructed for the U.S. President has been a National Geographic tradition that goes back to Franklin D. Roosevelt.
[Editor's note: Nations around the world are laying claim to areas beyond their 200-nautical-mile limit to lay claim to underwater mineral riches like oil and gas, including the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic, as detailed in last month's National Geographic magazine. Note the use of Southern Ocean on this map for waters around Antarctica south of 60 degrees.]
The scramble for the seabed: Coastal states have now made their bids for vast new areas of continental shelf
YOU never know what may come in handy. That is the principle behind the rush for the seabed that reached a climax of sorts this week with the deadline on May 13th for lodging claims to extensions of the continental shelf. When Russia sold Alaska to the United States for two cents an acre (five cents a hectare) in 1867, it thought it was parting with a useless lump of ice. After gold was discovered there, it began kicking itself. Now it is one of a host of countries eagerly laying claim to swathes of the seafloor that may one day yield huge riches. That is the hope anyway.
The rules for this carve-up derive from the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. These gave all countries that had ratified the treaty before May 13th 1999 ten years in which to claim any extension of their continental shelf beyond the normal 200 nautical miles (370km), so long as that extension was no more than 100 miles from the point at which the sea reached a depth of 2.5km, and no more than 350 miles from land. Any other country wishing to make a claim has ten years from the date on which it ratified the treaty. It must then, like all the states that have now made their claims, submit copious scientific evidence to show that the seabed in question is indeed continental shelf.
[Editor's note: The annual geo bee's U.S. round wrapped up yesterday. The winner, Eric Yang, will compete in the world championship in Mexico City. The contest was sponsored by Google this year and is hosted by Alex Trebek. Video of the winning question. Thanks Jo!]
Don’t mess with Texas seventh grader Eric Yang—at least when it comes to geography. Today the 13-year-old swept the toughest National Geographic Bee to date—with a perfect score.
Yang, of Griffin Middle School in The Colony, Texas, won the annual competition during a tie-breaker round with this question: “Timis County shares its name with a tributary of the Danube and is located in the western part of which European country?”
The answer, Romania, comes with a U.S. $25,000 college scholarship, a lifetime membership in the National Geographic Society, and a trip to the Galápagos Islands with Jeopardy! host and Bee moderator Alex Trebek.
Tibor Tóth has been creating shaded relief maps (see examples below) for many years for National Geographic among others and has made himself a little blog talking about some of his projects to make the occasion of his seventy-second birthday.
Post topics include:
RELIEF SHADING - Part 1. Including how Tibor got his start and Swiss style relief shading in the US
[Editor's note: New 3d ocean floor elevation data, historical land imagery, ability to record virtual tours, and 3d planet Mars mode come to Google Earth in version 5 released Monday, Feb. 2, 2009.]
Google on Monday announced the immediate release of Google Earth 5.0, bumping it up from the previous 4.3 build. Among the biggest changes are the inclusion of a detailed 3D ocean floor, the ability to go up to 50 years back in time when looking at a particular location, record a virtual tour of locations, and a 3D rendition of Mars. The ocean feature was developed together with many partners, including National Geographic, the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the US Navy, among others. The approximate two-thirds of the planet can now be viewed under water and includes videos and images of ocean life, along with details on surf spots, expedition logs and more. The historical images are accessed via a clock icon on the toolbar when viewing a location on the planet. The Touring feature lets travelers show off their journeys by recording navigating through their destinations and easily sharing them with peers. The fly-throughs can be narrated for an organized flow of a multi-stop journey.
Thanks to a joint project with NASA, Google Earth now also extends beyond to include a 3D map of Mars. Apart from 3D terrain, there are annotations describing the location and circumstanced associated with landing sites and the red planet’s other curiosities.
The download is free for both Mac and Windows PCs. Comprehensive information on the new features of Google Earth will be published throughout the week on Google’s Lat Long blog.
[Editor's note: New features are coming to an application near you. Thanks Laris!]
Republished from Google Earth Blog. Original publish date: January 26, 2009.
Big Google Earth Announcement with Al Gore and More
The tech world was abuzz this weekend with rumors about a big upcoming event concerning Google Earth. WebProNews and AppScout were the first to report on Friday. Google has sent out an invitation to the press, including Google Earth Blog, for a “Special announcement about Google Earth” on February 2nd in San Francisco. And this event looks like it could be the biggest announcement since Google Earth was released! Speakers include: former Vice President Al Gore, CEO of Google Eric Schmidt, VP of Google Marissa Mayer, and Director of Google Geo John Hanke. Wow!
There are no specifics on the announcement mentioned in the invitation. Just some comments about how Google Earth has reached hundreds of millions of people around the world. The last time Google had this many dignitaries to make an announcement for Google Earth was in June of 2006 when they announced the upcoming release of Google Earth 4. Eric Schmidt and the two co-founders of Google (Larry Page and Sergey Brin) were there for the announcement made by John Hanke at that event. Google Earth 4 introduced photorealistic textures to 3D models, GE for the Mac and Linux, multi-lingual support, and a huge global imagery update covering many countries for the first time.
Another clue for this announcement was some other speakers for the announcement: Sylvia Earle - Explorer-in-Residence for National Geographic Society; Terry Garcia - EVP for National Geographic Society, and Greg Farrington, Executive Director for California Academy of Sciences. The last one isn’t surprising because the invitation says the announcement will be held at the California Academy of Sciences.
The big clue is Sylvia Earle. As pointed out by everyone, Sylvia Earle is a world renowned oceanographer. So, of course, the immediate conclusion is that Google Ocean is finally about to be introduced. Rumors have been flying about Google Ocean for quite a while.
So, clearly Google Earth is going to get some new Ocean-related data. Google just added new detailed ocean floor imagery last week. And, it’s a known fact that several of the parties involved with that also have worked on 3D bathymetry. Google Earth to date has not had many layers which provide data about the ocean. And the ocean terrain has always been flat (2D) in Google Earth. More ocean data is an area I’ve been looking forward to with great anticipation. Especially since this year my wife and I are departing to spend the next five years circumnavigating the oceans by sailboat. Having Google Earth help us explore the oceans will be handy! Google Earth has needed more information about the 75% of the Earth most of us ignore.
I don’t think this announcement will be confined to just Google Ocean though. When Google makes an announcement like this, they always try to push the envelope on multiple fronts. And, with Al Gore headlining the event, I’m sure we’re going to get some data about the environment. I’m expecting lots of new features and data to write about in February. It’s going to be exciting! I just wish I could attend the event myself - but, unfortunately we’ve got plans for next week which keep me from going. But, have no fear, I’ll still be reporting on this major event!
