movie:in search of

  • Perennial Rice: In Search of a Greener, Hardier Staple Crop
    http://e360.yale.edu/feature/perennial_rice_in_search_of_a_greener_hardier_staple_crop/2853

    Ten thousand years ago, China’s ancient inhabitants harvested the grains of wild rice, a perennial grass growing up to 15 feet tall in bogs and streams. The grains were small and red, maturing in waves and often shattering into the water. Their descendants transformed that grain into the high-yielding annual crop that today feeds half the world’s population. When agronomist F. H. King toured China’s meticulously maintained rice terraces in 1909, he called the men and women who tilled them “farmers of forty centuries.” To him, they seemed to have unlocked the secret to perennial rice conserving soil and maintaining agricultural fertility indefinitely. [...]

    An international network of scientists is working toward a radical solution: perennial rice that yields grain for many years without replanting. By crossing domesticated rice with its wild predecessors, they hope to create deep-rooted varieties that hold soils in place, require less labor, and survive extremes of temperature and water supply. Plant breeders have been trying to do the same for wheat, sorghum, and other crops for decades.

    #riz #riz_perpetuel

  • Ingenious: Ian Tattersall - Issue 8: Home
    http://nautil.us/issue/8/home/ingenious-ian-tattersall

    In his essay, “In Search of the First Human Home,” in this issue of Nautilus, Ian Tattersall calls humans’ modern notion of home “revolutionary.” In our video interview (above), the paleontologist and former chairman of the department of anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History explains why. Our idea of home is characteristic of symbolic thinking, he maintains, a revolution in human development that separates us from all other animals; what’s more, “it’s something that is completely accidental.” The millions of people who have passed through the august doors of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City have experienced Tattersall’s work. For the past four decades, Tattersall, now a curator emeritus at the museum, has shaped its magnificent exhibitions on human (...)

  • In search of fair trial |
    Military trials in #Egypt, worse then ever
    Mada Masr
    Naira Antoun

    http://www.madamasr.com/content/search-fair-trial

    In search of fair trial
    Military trials carry on, with slight variations
    By: Naira Antoun
    As increasing numbers of Islamists are being arrested and facing military trials, there is a certain irony that it was the Constitution, essentially authored by the Muslim Brotherhood, that was the first in the country’s history to allow such trials for civilians, in specific circumstances.

    Setting a constitutional precedent that still remains in place in the aftermath of President Mohamed Morsi’s ouster, the relevant article reads: “Civilians shall not stand trial before military courts except for crimes that harm the Armed Forces.”

    Previously the 1971 Constitution only stipulated: The law shall regulate the military judiciary, and define their competences in the framework of the principles in the Constitution. And while military courts were used to prosecute civilians, it was by special order from the presidency, not codified in the country’s charter.

    If you don’t talk back, you might end up in civilian court or nothing will happen. If you talk back, maybe nothing will happen, but it happens a lot that it ends up as a military trial
    Since June 30, there have been almost 100 detainees referred to military trial, many on charges of harming the Armed Forces. The cases are broad, from fishermen accused of fishing in military waters and those caught breaking the curfew, to those accused of chanting slogans that are damaging to national security and spreading false information about the military.

    Ahmed Abu Deraa, a journalist in northern Sinai, was reporting on the military’s Sinai campaign and its impact on civilians. He was arrested and accused of reporting false news. He faced a military trial and has since been released with a six-month suspended sentence.

    Mahmoud Salamani of the No to Military Trials campaign says that while journalists have faced military summons in the past two and a half years, Deraa is the first to be sentenced in a military trial. “It’s a worrying sign,” he says.

    In Suez, seven people faced military trial in September for employing slogans allegedly damaging to national security.

    “What is national security, anyway?” Salamani asks rhetorically. “No one can answer that question.”

  • In search of public domain, Analysis and strategy
    Maarten Hajer, Arnold Reijndorp
    NAi-Publishers, Rotterdam, 2001

    ISBN 90-5662-201-3
    ISBN 90-5662-200-5 (Dutch edition)

    In search of new public domain is a report of an intensive quest to establish the preconditions for the design of new public spaces. On the basis of an analysis of the cultural geography of the network city, the authors develop a new perspective of cultural exchange as a typical urban quality. They are critical of the laments about the decline of the city and public space, as much as of a naive faith in architecture and urbanism as saving graces. A critical investigation of the new collective spaces that are popping up across the whole of the urban field offers an insight into the factors that facilitate the development of new public domain. Through their clarification of the theoretical background and analysis of topical issues such as public safety and social segregation, the authors offer insights and instruments for policy-makers and designers who are confronted with the new task of the design of public domain in the network city.

    Maarten Hajer is an urban planner and political scientist, and holds the Chair in Public Policy at the University of Amsterdam.

    Arnold Reijndorp is an independent researcher on the cutting-edge of urbanism and urban culture. From 1998 to 2000 he was visiting professor in urbanism and urban sociology at the Technical University of Berlin.

    http://www.naipublishers.nl/architecture/publicdomain.html

    #bibliographie #livre #dfs #domaine-public #bien-public

  • Linotype: The Eighth Wonder of The World — Imprint-The Online Community for Graphic Designers
    http://imprint.printmag.com/daily-heller/linotype-the-eighth-wonder-of-the-world

    The new film Linotype: In Search of the Eighth Wonder of the World will have its world premiere in New York City on Feb 3 (7 p.m.)at the SVA Theatre - 333 West 23rd St and 8th Avenue. On hand will be Douglas Wilson, the director, and various interviewees from the film for panel discussion, moderated by me.

    #typographie