artchipel:

Tumblr Artist

Alex Stoddard | on Tumblr (b.1993, USA) - Sleepwalker / Dreamland

Florida born California based photographer Alex Stoddard began taking self-portraits at the age of sixteen in the woods behind his Georgian home. His work focuses on the human form and the process of infusing it with natural surroundings. He also strives to create whimsical and surreal portraits. (cf. artist’s bio) You can visit his website or follow his Tumblr for more work and inspiration.

[more Alex Stoddard | artist found at arpeggia]

(Source: artchipel, via rhamphotheca)

mothernaturenetwork:

Satellite photos show Amazon vanishing
Clear-cutting for roads and agriculture has transformed the Amazon rain forest in western Brazil, as a new set of satellite images from NASA illustrates.

(via sagansense)

discoverynews:

sciencecenter:

Amazing technology would allow for underground parks in NYC

If you’ve been to Manhattan in the past several years, you may have heard of the Highline in Chelsea. It’s a project that converted an abandoned above-ground railroad track into a park, and it has turned the formerly underdeveloped area around it into one of the trendiest new neighborhoods in the city; if you visit Manhattan, you have to check it out. Anyway, two architects want to build a park that will do for the Lower East Side what the Highline did for Chelsea, but with a twist: they want to build it underground!

If you’ve been to Manhattan ever, you’ll also know that space is at a premium, and there are few open spaces left to grow leafy green things or build a park. Dubbed the LowLine, the project would convert an old underground trolley car station, abandoned in 1948 and untouched since, into a 1.5 acre underground park. But how? This is where the science comes in: they’ve developed the technology to transmit sunlight underground. Using large parabolic mirrors and a fiber optic relay, sunlight from the surface would be shuttled to the park and then redisbursed, allegedly yielding enough light for photosynthesis. As shown in the artist’s renderings above, the park could house trees, grass, farmers markets, or art installations, all year round, rain or shine. The architects raised money on Kickstarter for a proof-of-concept exhibition, happening RIGHT NOW in the Essex Street Market in NYC, and they’re doing battle with the city and the transit authority that owns the underground depot for approval. Here’s to hoping the city bureaucrats see the light! *slaps knee*

Quick Links

• TheLowLine.Org
• LowLine Kickstarter Project Page
• Meet the LowLine - The New Yorker

this looks beautiful, but how would it smell? hopefully not like a musty, damp basement.

Either way i’d still visit.

The public’s rejection of global warming is even more dangerous for working class and poor people. It’s well-understood that poorer people bear the brunt of environmental destruction, since they can’t afford to move out of polluted areas that are linked to health issues like asthma and cancer. There’s no reason to think that global warming won’t create similar problems, with wealthier people abandoning areas that are now flood plains. As summers get hotter, air conditioning is going to become all the more necessary, but soaring fuel prices will start putting it out of reach for ordinary people, even as the annual death toll from heat stroke continues to climb.

But because the media portrays climate change as “controversial”—strictly because of conservative distrust of science—most Americans are oblivious to the severity of the problem. Campaigns barely touch it, and lower-income people have even more obstacles when it comes to demanding action on this issue, because they’re usually too busy worrying about immediate economic concerns. Better science education and more trust in science could help the raise the issue higher on the priority list for all voters, but especially those who will be most affected. As it is now, it’s nearly impossible to get the conversation started.

Science and science education feel like they’re academic issues that, while interesting and important, aren’t top-tier progressive issues like economic justice or healthcare access. But without strong social support for science, these goals will be much harder to reach, and in some cases, impossible. The high levels of scientific illiteracy in the U.S. should be as upsetting to liberals as high levels of reading illiteracy would be, and should be addressed just as seriously.

(Source: sociolab, via sagansense)