There's a pivotal scene in the 2012 film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey when Gandalf, Bilbo Baggins, and a company of dwarves are chased by orcs through a classic New Zealand landscape. For Northwestern University neuroscientist and engineer Malcolm MacIver, the scene is an excellent example of the kind of patchy landscape—dotted with trees, bushes, [...]
Tag: Enviroment
The Kerguelen Islands in the Indian Ocean • Earth.com
Image of the Day from NASA Earth Observatory features an astronaut view of the Kerguelen Islands in the southern Indian Ocean. On the western side of the islands, winds were pushing low-lying clouds against the shore. At the same time, ship wave clouds appear rippling over smaller outlying islands. In the bottom if the image, [...]
Humans coexisted with three-tonne marsupials and lizards as long as cars in ancient Australia
When people first arrived in what is now Queensland, they would have found the land inhabited by massive animals including goannas six metres long and kangaroos twice as tall as a human. — Read on theconversation.com/humans-coexisted-with-three-tonne-marsupials-and-lizards-as-long-as-cars-in-ancient-australia-138534
COVID-19 Environment – Are Pandemics Good for the Environment?
COVID-19 environment - An anthropologist looks at past disease outbreaks to consider how the COVID-19 crisis may—or may not—benefit the environment. — Read on http://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/covid-19-environment/
Rise and Fall of the Indus Valley Civilisation: a perspective
The Indus Valley Civilisation lasted from the late fifth to the second millennium BC, developed a vast network of well planned settlements and engaged in long distance trade with Egypt and Mesopotamia. The civilisation was referred to as Meluhha in Mesopotamian sources - a name which still exists in India for many fertile [...]
Rain may soon be an effective source of renewable energy | Engadget
Researchers have developed a generator that uses a field-effect transistor-style structure to instantly produce a surprisingly high voltage from water drops -- a single drop can muster 140V, or enough power to briefly light up 100 small LED bulbs. Earlier generators without the structure produced "thousands" of times less instant power density, the scientists said. [...]
Belt and Road Initiative: Geopolitical Analysis
http://www.youtube.com/watch The Belt and Road initiative is a convergence of China's New Silk Road project to create land routes through Central Asia, linking Eurasia and Europe, with the New Maritime Silk Road initiative to build a network of ports and logistics in the Indian Ocean region. This presentation analyses the geopolitics of the Belt and [...]
Can plants help us avoid a climate catastrophe? | OUPblog
The amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by burning of fossil fuels is at a staggering all time high of 34 billion tonnes, having risen every decade since the 1960s. — Read on blog.oup.com/
How the US Can Win Its Trade War With China | The Diplomat
History provides the blueprint for a winning deal. — Read on thediplomat.com/2019/04/how-the-us-can-win-its-trade-war-with-china/
Geopolitics of Early Human Migrations: Land, Terrain and Territory
http://www.youtube.com/watch The presentation takes a Big History approach to understanding Early Human Migrations and dispersal out of Africa across all continents of the world. We begin by creating a framework for our analysis based on anthropology and political geography. We apply it to the broad swathe of human history beginning around 250,000 years ago and [...]
