Daily Nature and Science News and Headlines

Les premiers artistes préhistoriques seraient des femmes
▻http://www.huffingtonpost.fr/2013/10/11/art-femmes-prehistoire_n_4083237.html

ART - Il y a des milliers d’années, naissait l’art. Des peintures murales préhistoriques dans des grottes, et notamment des empreintes de mains. On a toujours pensé que ces peintures étaient l’oeuvre des hommes, chasseurs-cueilleurs, qui reproduisaient sur les murs les récits de leurs activité. Et bien non. Une récente étude montre que 75% de ces peintures auraient été faites par des femmes rapporte le National Geographic.

En 1998, un biologiste anglais, John Manning, faisait une découverte somme toute banale. La longueur des doigts des hommes diffère de celle des doigts de femme. Les femmes auraient un annulaire et un index de la même longueur, alors que l’annulaire des hommes est plus long que leur index.
De l’autre côté de l’Atlantique, Dean Snow, de l’université d’Etat de Pennsylvanie, remarque cette étude de Manning. Ouvrant un livre de peintures préhistoriques, il observe alors la taille des index et des annulaires. Qui pour la plupart, sont de taille égale. « Je me suis dit, mince, si Manning sait de quoi il parle, alors ce sont certainement des mains de femme », se rappelle-t-il.

Snow se lance alors dans l’exploration des grottes. Il examine des centaines d’empreintes (dont 32 sont retenues dans l’étude) dans huit grottes en France (Gargas, Pech Merle) et en Espagne (El Castillo).

Grâce aux différentes mesures qu’il a relevé, taille des doigts, de la main, ratio taille de l’index/de l’annulaire, ration taille de l’index/ de l’auriculaire, il a pu déterminer si à quelle sexe appartenaient les empreintes, le tout, à l’aide un algorithme.

S’il était utilisé aujourd’hui l’algorithme n’aurait une précision que de 60%, car les mains des hommes et des femmes peuvent plus ou moins se ressembler, mais à la préhistoire, leurs mains étaient bien distinctes.

75% des empreintes sont des mains de femmes

Résultats : sur 32 mains, 24 sont de femmes, soit 75%. Pourquoi a t-on toujours cru que ces peintures étaient masculines ? Notamment parce qu’elles représentent des scènes de chasse, et que seuls les hommes chassaient. Sauf que les femmes étaient aussi concernées : ce sont elles qui amenaient la viande au camp.

Si certains chercheurs pensent que c’est une découverte importante, pour d’autres, ce sont des résultats à prendre avec des pincettes, notamment parce qu’il se pourrait bien que ces mains dites de femme soient en fait des mains d’adolescents.

#femmes #préhistoire #arts #peinture #historicisation

#références_projet_perso #liste
« IMPACT SUR... »
santé & environnement

SANTÉ
artères
→ nutrition facts
alimentation végétale VS alimentation "normale" américaine VS grand sportif avec une alimentation "normale" américaine
▻http://nutritionfacts.org/video/arteries-of-vegans-vs-runners

viande rouge
→ OMS
communiqué de 2015
▻http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2015/cancer-red-meat/fr
▻http://www.who.int/features/qa/cancer-red-meat/fr

lait
→ BMJ
étude suédoise, 2014, parue dans le British Medical Journal
▻http://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/349/bmj.g6015.full.pdf

alimentation végétale en général
→ liens de textes de groupes de diététiciens, d’hôpitaux, et autres institutions de différents pays
▻https://vegankwaice.wordpress.com/2015/09/03/traduction-lalimentation-vegetalienne-des-vegan%C2%B7es-bonne

→ APSARES
Association de Professionnels de Santé pour une Alimentation Responsable (médecins & diététiciens français)
▻http://www.alimentation-responsable.com/position-de-lapsares

recommandations
→ FAO + WHO (World Health Organization)
un de leurs buts : promouvoir les bienfaits pour la santé des fruits et légumes à travers le monde
▻http://www.who.int/dietphysicalactivity/fruit/en

→ Jack Norris + Ginny Messina
doses recommandées de vitamines, par deux diététiciens
▻http://www.veganhealth.org/articles/dailyrecs

→ Ginny Messina
les 7 conseils santé de cette diététicienne
▻http://www.onegreenplanet.org/vegan-health/the-7-habits-of-healthy-vegans

+ sport

+→ listes athlètes végétaliens
exemples de sportifs végétaliens
▻http://www.greatveganathletes.com
▻http://www.adaptt.org/athletes.html
▻http://www.vegactu.com/category/sport
▻http://www.vegansociety.com/whats-new/blog/ten-best-plant-powered-athletes

_

PLANETE/HABITAT
impact global de l’agriculture
→ CITEPA
Centre Interprofessionnel Technique d’Études de la Pollution Atmosphérique ;
"association à but non lucratif [qui] élabore, vérifie et diffuse des informations relatives aux [GES]" ; "Operateur d’Etat pour le Ministère de Ecologie"
▻http://www.citepa.org/fr/air-et-climat/analyse-sectorielle/agriculture

→ FAO
Organisation des Nations Unies pour l’Alimentation et l’Agriculture (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) ;
"organisation intergouvernementale qui compte 194 Etats membres"
▻http://www.fao.org/docrep/004/y3557f/y3557f11.htm

→ Worldwatch Institute
institut de recherche indépendant fondé en 1974 qui est centré sur les enjeux environnementaux mondiaux
▻https://www.worldwatch.org/files/pdf/Livestock%20and%20Climate%20Change.pdf
/étude de 2013_
▻http://www.worldwatch.org/agriculture-and-livestock-remain-major-sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions-
(et ça fait des années qu’ils voient la viande comme un problème environnemental : ▻http://www.worldwatch.org/node/549, 2004)

déforestation & destruction des habitats naturels d’autres animaux
→ Sérgio Margulis,
Causes of Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon, World Bank Working Paper, no. 22 (Washington, D.C : World Bank, 2004)
agriculture animale=première cause de déforestation de la forêt amazonienne (voir par exemple tableau p.37)
▻http://www-wds.worldbank.org/servlet/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2004/02/02/000090341_20040202130625/Rendered/PDF/277150PAPER0wbwp0no1022.pdf

→ WWF (World Wildlife Fund)
"Forest loss and degradation is mostly caused by the expansion of agricultural land, intensive harvesting of timber, wood for fuel and other forest products, as well as overgrazing." (2016)
▻http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/species/problems/habitat_loss_degradation

→ Brian Machovina, Kenneth J. Feeley, and William J. Ripple
Biodiversity Conservation : The Key Is Reducing Meat Consumption (2015)
▻http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969715303697

→ Dr Richard Oppenlander (chercheur, conférencier, et conseiller aux USA pour des programmes de luttes contre la faim dans le monde)
▻http://comfortablyunaware.com/blog/biodiversity-and-food-choice-a-clarification

destruction de la vie marine (pourtant nécessaire à l’humanité)
¶ National Geographic
l’oxygène que l’on respire est fourni par les forêts (28%) mais aussi par les plantes marines unicellullaires (70%)
▻http://nationalgeographic.org/activity/save-the-plankton-breathe-freely
▻http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/06/0607_040607_phytoplankton.html

→ FAO
plus de 90 million de tonnes de poissons sauvages sont pêchés (2011)
▻http://www.fao.org/docrep/016/i2727e/i2727e01.pdf (tableau p. 3)

→ EJF (Environmental Justice Foundation, 2003)
impact des "prises accessoires" (animaux pêchés sans qu’on le veuille) qui sont rejetées à la mer (blessés ou morts)
▻http://ejfoundation.org/sites/default/files/public/squandering_the_seas.pdf (voir à partir de la p.15)

"zones mortes" maritimes
→ "Dead Zones"
Louisiana universities marine consortium, press release (2014)
"The amount of nutrient loading from the river increased considerably in the 1960s as a result of more intense agricultural activity in the watershed. The primary driver of the increased nutrient loading is agricultural land use, which is strongly influenced by farm policy."
▻http://www.gulfhypoxia.net/research/shelfwide%20cruises/2014/hypoxia_press_release_2014.pdf

Scientific American, EarthTalk (2016)
"Nitrogen and phosphorous from agricultural runoff are the primary culprits [...] Fortunately, dead zones are reversible if their causes are reduced or eliminated."
▻http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ocean-dead-zones

eau
→ Water Footprint Assessment (WFA)
l’agriculture animale utilise environ 1/3 de l’eau potable, 2013
▻http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212371713000024
voir l’impact de différents produits
▻http://waterfootprint.org/en/resources/interactive-tools/product-gallery

→ "World Water Week" de SIWI (Stockholm International Water Institute)
15 000 litres d’eau pour obtenir 1 kg de chair de boeuf : la meilleure solution pour économiser l’eau, c’est de devenir végétalien (250 litres pour obtenir 1 kg de patates)
▻http://www.worldwaterweek.org/bestwaterideas

→ FAO, Pollution de l’eau par l’élevage du bétail
"The livestock sector is a key player in increasing water use, accounting for over 8 percent of global human water use, mostly for the irrigation of feedcrops. It is probably the largest sectoral source of water pollution, contributing to eutrophication, “dead” zones in coastal areas, degradation of coral reefs, human health problems, emergence of antibiotic resistance and many others. The major sources of pollution are from animal wastes, antibiotics and hormones, chemicals from tanneries, fertilizers and pesticides used for feedcrops, and sediments from eroded pastures." (p. 24 du pdf)
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/010/a0701e/a0701e00.pdf

+ chiffres
→ chiffres français
Ministère de l’Agriculture, de l’Agroalimentaire et de la Forêt ;
nombres des "productions animales" hors poissons 2014
▻http://agreste.agriculture.gouv.fr/enquetes/statistique-agricole-annuelle-saa

→ la faim dans le monde pourrait être (théoriquement) éradiquée
les USA pourraient nourrir 800 millions de gens au lieu de nourrir les animaux pour manger leur chair
▻http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-800-million-people-grain-livestock-eat
la faim dans le monde concernait environ 795 millions de gens dans le monde en 2015
▻https://www.wfp.org/hunger/stats
▻http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm#Number_of_hungry_people_in_the_world

...

+→ infos provenant d’une source pro-végétal
AVF + Peta + L214 + Écologie sans frontière + VegLorraine
▻http://www.viande.info

Etude : Les premiers artistes de l’Humanité étaient des femmes - Savoir - tdg.ch
▻http://www.tdg.ch/savoirs/premiers-artistes-humanite-femmes/story/31398484

http://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/data/images/1311861-Peinture_rupestre.jpg

Les manuels d’histoire étaient jusqu’ici formels : les magnifiques fresques rupestres que l’on trouve notamment dans les grottes de Lascaux, en France, ont été peintes par des hommes. Probablement des chasseurs qui racontaient et valorisaient ainsi leurs parties de chasse. Hic : une étude vient de paraître et contredit ce qui était jusqu’ici acquis. Elle démontre en effet que les femmes étaient sans doute les premières artistes de l’Humanité.

L’archéologue Dean Snow, de l’Université de Pennsylvanie, est arrivé à la conclusion, dans le journal American Antiquity, que 75% des peintures de bisons, mammouths, chevaux et autres cerfs capturés par des hommes, avaient été réalisées par la gent féminine préhistorique, rapporte le National Geographic.

Top 6 des femmes scientifiques qui se sont fait faucher leur découverte (et leur prix Nobel)
▻http://egalitariste.tumblr.com/post/114672992809/femmes-prix-nobel-sexisme

A part Marie Curie, il faut bien reconnaître que nous connaissons fort peu de femmes scientifiques. Et figurez-vous que ça n’est pas parce que nous sommes de mauvaise volonté, mais parce que le corps scientifique a mis toute son énergie dans le fait de ne pas mettre en avant les femmes qui faisaient des découvertes de dingo, notamment en refourguant les prix Nobel qu’elles méritaient à des hommes.

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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Lise_Meitner12.jpg

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http://news.nationalgeographic.com/content/dam/news/photos/000/669/66913.adapt.768.2.jpg

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http://www.physics.ox.ac.uk/astro/people/images/SJocelynBellBurnell.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Cecilia_Helena_Payne_Gaposchkin_(1900-1979)_(3).jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d7/Nettie_Stevens.jpg/220px-Nettie_Stevens.jpg

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2006/november29/gifs/ester.jpg

Question parité, y’a encore du taff chez les Nobel.
Découvrez d’autres femmes de science via le projet de jeu de cartes “Femmes de Science”. Le jeu final sera offert sous licence Creative Commons.▻https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/femmes-de-science❞
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http://www.history.com/images/media/slideshow/women-in-science-and-health/chien-shiung-wu.jpg

Chien-Shiung Wu

Born in Liu Ho, China, in 1912, Chien-Shiung Wu overturned a law of physics and participated in the development of the atom bomb.

Wu was recruited to Columbia University in the 1940s as part of the Manhattan Project and conducted research on radiation detection and uranium enrichment. She stayed in the United States after the war and became known as one of the best experimental physicists of her time, said Nina Byers, a retired physics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

In the mid-1950s, two theoretical physicists, Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang, approached Wu to help disprove the law of parity. The law holds that in quantum mechanics, two physical systems—like atoms—that were mirror images would behave in identical ways.

Wu’s experiments using cobalt-60, a radioactive form of the cobalt metal, upended this law, which had been accepted for 30 years.

This milestone in physics led to a 1957 Nobel Prize for Yang and Lee—but not for Wu, who was left out despite her critical role. “People found [the Nobel decision] outrageous,” said Byers.

Pnina Abir-Am, a historian of science at Brandeis University, agreed, adding that ethnicity also played a role.

Wu died of a stroke in 1997 in New York.
▻http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130519-women-scientists-overlooked-dna-history-science

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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Mileva_Maric.jpg

#historicisation #femme #femmes #sciences

Europe’s Languages Were Carried From the East, DNA Shows
The new settlers, revealed by a genetic analysis, may solve a mystery swirling around the origins of Indo-European languages.
▻http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/03/150303-human-dna-europe-language-archaeology

New DNA evidence suggests that herders from the grasslands of today’s Russia and Ukraine carried the roots of modern European languages across the continent some 4,500 years ago.

The introduction of farming has often been described as the pivotal event in European prehistory. The new study, published Monday in the journal Nature, suggests that instead of one mass migration of farmers, as long thought, there were two: first an influx from Anatolia, a region of today’s Turkey, and then a second wave of people moving into central Europe from the steppes of modern-day Russia, four millennia later, who would have brought with them the Indo-European languages that became English and many other modern European languages.

Le contenu de l’article est (un peu) plus subtil que l’équation ADN = langage du titre. De même le titre de l’article original de Nature, tout aussi affirmatif, la conclusion du résumé l’étant (un peu) moins.

Massive migration from the steppe was a source for Indo-European languages in Europe (39 signatories)
▻http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature14317.html

We generated genome-wide data from 69 Europeans who lived between 8,000–3,000 years ago by enriching ancient DNA libraries for a target set of almost 400,000 polymorphisms. Enrichment of these positions decreases the sequencing required for genome-wide ancient DNA analysis by a median of around 250-fold, allowing us to study an order of magnitude more individuals than previous studies and to obtain new insights about the past. We show that the populations of Western and Far Eastern Europe followed opposite trajectories between 8,000–5,000 years ago. At the beginning of the Neolithic period in Europe, ~8,000–7,000 years ago, closely related groups of early farmers appeared in Germany, Hungary and Spain, different from indigenous hunter-gatherers, whereas Russia was inhabited by a distinctive population of hunter-gatherers with high affinity to a ~24,000-year-old Siberian. By ~6,000–5,000 years ago, farmers throughout much of Europe had more hunter-gatherer ancestry than their predecessors, but in Russia, the Yamnaya steppe herders of this time were descended not only from the preceding eastern European hunter-gatherers, but also from a population of Near Eastern ancestry. Western and Eastern Europe came into contact ~4,500 years ago, as the Late Neolithic Corded Ware people from Germany traced ~75% of their ancestry to the Yamnaya, documenting a massive migration into the heartland of Europe from its eastern periphery. This steppe ancestry persisted in all sampled central Europeans until at least ~3,000 years ago, and is ubiquitous in present-day Europeans. These results provide support for a steppe origin of at least some of the Indo-European languages of Europe.

Plein de graphiques, dont

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/images/nature14317-f1.jpg

Le résumé cartographique des hypothèses

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/images/nature14317-sf4.jpg

Chemical Exposure Linked to Billions in Health Care Costs
▻http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/03/150305-chemicals-endocrine-disruptors-diabetes-toxic-enviro

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/u/TvyamNb-BivtNwpvn7Sct0VFDulyAfA9wBcU0gVHVnqC5ghmf8Hd-Q_jxJbYhECThYTeYY9ZgmMFlTsIzl4/#.jpg

Researchers conclude they are 99 percent certain that hormone-altering chemicals are linked to attention problems, diabetes, other health problems.

#santé #coût #chimie

Why Didn’t Toxic Waste Cause a #Cancer Epidemic, Like We Expected in the 1970s ?
▻http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/12/141211-superfund-hazardous-waste-cancer-science-environment

#santé #environnement #statistiques (noté pour référencer le débat)

Endangered Orangutans Gain From Eco-Friendly Shifts in Palm Oil Market (v @orangutans)
▻http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/10/141009-orangutans-palm-oil-malaysia-indonesia-tigers-rhinos

http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/845/cache/nationalgeographic-1572799_84522_990x742.jpg

A World With 11 Billion People? New Population Projections Shatter Earlier Estimates
▻http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/09/140918-population-global-united-nations-2100-boom-africa

http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-content/photos/000/838/cache/83845_990x742-cb1411055501.jpg

That range “is the truly innovative part,” says John Wilmoth, head of the UN #Population Division and one of the authors of the Science paper. “It’s a much more plausible analysis of uncertainty—but we may still be off by two billion.”

According to other demographers, the UN has missed the mark by just about that amount. In a paper in press at Global Environmental Change and in a forthcoming book, Wolfgang Lutz and his colleagues at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Vienna, Austria, use a very different method—one that involves canvassing a large group of experts—to argue that population is likely to peak at 9.4 billion in 2075 and fall to just under 9 billion by 2100.

The UN team estimates there’s no more than a 5 percent chance of that rosier scenario coming to pass.

Both groups foresee India becoming the world’s most populous country, with its numbers peaking around 2070 and declining to around 1.5 or 1.6 billion by 2100. Where they differ most is in their estimates of the coming population decline in China and of the coming population explosion in Africa south of the Sahara—where most of the world’s growth is going to occur.

According to the UN, the population in that region could quadruple, from less than one billion to nearly four billion. Africa in 2100 would be as densely populated as China is today.

“These are not predictions,” says Wilmoth. “These are projections of what will happen if current trends continue. There is still an opportunity to intervene.”

#prévisions #démographie #Inde #Afrique

“Zombie” Servers and Inefficiency Drive Energy Waste at Data Centers
▻http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2014/08/140826-nrdc-data-center-energy-waste

The high energy demand of those servers is well documented, but up to 30 percent of them are drawing power without actually doing anything.

These “zombie,” or comatose, servers are among the examples of energy waste documented in a report about U.S. data centers released Tuesday by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). If those facilities were to cut electricity consumption by 40 percent—half of what is possible using the tools now available to improve efficiency—the electricity savings would amount to $3.8 billion and 39 billion kilowatt-hours, according to the report.

(...) Large companies such as Google, Facebook, eBay, and Microsoft are already highly efficient, a result of major resources and huge scale, but their share of electricity use is just 5 percent of total data center consumption in the United States.

“Our concern is more about the other 95 percent”

#énergie #datacenters #zombies

The 1,300 Bird Species Facing Extinction Signal Threats to Human Health
▻http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/08/140825-bird-environment-chemical-contaminant-climate-change

Through analysis of the inner workings of birds’ cells, scientists have been deciphering increasingly urgent signals from ecosystems around the world.

Like the fabled canaries that miners once thrust into coal mines to check for poisonous gases, birds provide the starkest clues in the animal kingdom about whether humans, too, may be harmed by toxic substances.

And they prophesy what might happen to us as the load of carbon-based, planet-warming gases in the atmosphere and oceans climbs ever higher.

(...)

The idea that birds tell us about our own health has gained even more scientific traction in the decades since Silent Spring as biochemical analysis has become more precise. Much of that work stemmed from studies Canadian Wildlife Service toxicologist Glen Fox and others conducted on the Great Lakes, the world’s first and biggest testing ground for contaminants and birds.

Fox’s work began with tales from terns and other fish-eating birds. He found high levels of #polychlorinated_biphenyls (#PCBs) in the lakes and their sediments, and enlarged thyroids that were producing little hormone in the birds. Substances that build up in food webs just like DDT, PCBs were banned in the United States in 1978, with the rest of the world to follow.

By the late 1980s, there was so much research about chemicals in the Great Lakes that zoologist Theo Colborn, then at the World Wildlife Fund, began examining the studies to see if she could discern a big picture.

The results were stunning: The Great Lakes’s top 16 or 17 bird predators were vanishing. The problem stemmed from assaults on the endocrine system, which controls hormones and reproduction. And that, in turn, was linked to man-made substances in the water and prey. So, birds’ ability to reproduce crashed in multiple ways. The concept of the “endocrine disruptor” was born.

Siberian Discovery Suggests Almost All Dinosaurs Were Feathered
▻http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/07/140724-feathered-siberia-dinosaur-scales-science

Almost all dinosaurs were probably covered in feathers, Siberian fossils of a tufted, two-legged running dinosaur dating from roughly 160 million years ago suggest.

“Probably that means the common ancestor of all dinosaurs had feathers,” says study lead author Pascal Godefroit of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Science in Brussels. “Feathers are not a characteristic [just] of birds but of all dinosaurs.”

Even so, Godefroit suggests that the largest dinosaurs likely had the fewest feathers, as they wouldn’t have needed them for insulation. “Just like elephants in Africa don’t need fur,” he says.

The illegal trade in wild-animal products: Bitter pills | The Economist
▻http://www.economist.com/news/international/21607891-parts-some-endangered-species-are-worth-more-gold-or-cocaine-bit

AT $10 billion a year, illegal wildlife makes up the world’s fifth-largest illicit market behind drugs, counterfeit products, trafficked people and smuggled oil. An intergovernmental conference in Geneva from July 7th-11th revealed the special worries about #ivory smuggling in Thailand, #rhino-horn trafficking through Mozambique and trade in #tiger parts across South and South-East Asia.

▻https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BtN83EOIgAArgnF.png:large

via @freakonometrics

First of Its Kind Map Reveals Extent of Ocean Plastic
▻http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/07/140715-ocean-plastic-debris-trash-pacific-garbage-patch/?rptregcta=reg_free_np&rptregcampaign=20131016_rw_membershi

http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-content/photos/000/816/81694-cb1405449966.jpg

First of Its Kind Map Reveals Extent of Ocean Plastic
▻http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/07/140715-ocean-plastic-debris-trash-pacific-garbage-patch

New Maps Document Floating Plastic Trash
Tens of thousands of tons of plastic garbage float on the surface waters in the world’s oceans, according to researchers who mapped giant accumulation zones of trash in all five subtropical ocean gyres. Ocean currents act as “conveyor belts,” researchers say, carrying debris into massive convergence zones that are estimated to contain millions of plastic items per square kilometer in their inner cores.
Map shows plastic debris in surface water of world’s oceans. Created in-house by Jamie Hawk (Ryan Morris).
NG STAFF, JAMIE HAWK. SOURCE: ANDRÉS COZAR, UNIVERSITY OF CÁDIZ, SPAIN

http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-content/photos/000/816/81694-cb1405449966.jpg

#cartographie #mer #plastique #pollution

How Should Crimea Be Shown on National Geographic Maps?

►http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140319-national-geographic-maps-crimea-annexation-russia

What has been a question for international leaders is now a question for cartographers: How will Crimea be shown on maps?

http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/778/cache/crimea-reunification-russia-01_77832_990x742.jpg

Depending on whom you ask, it is either part of Russia or part of Ukraine. For mapmakers, the decision to change the status of a region is based on consultations with multiple authoritative sources and extensive research.

#cartographie #crimée #ukraine #russie #problème

Cold War Spy-Satellite Images Unveil Lost Cities
▻http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/04/140425-corona-spy-satellite-archaeology-science

the new Corona Atlas of the Middle East, unveiled Thursday at the Society for American Archaeology’s annual meeting, moves spy-satellite science to a new level. Surveying land from Egypt to Iran—and encompassing the Fertile Crescent, the renowned cradle of civilization and location of some of humanity’s earliest cities—the atlas reveals numerous sites that had been lost to history.

et le site : ▻http://corona.cast.uark.edu/index.html

#archeologie #histoire #moyen-orient

How Should Crimea Be Shown on National Geographic Maps?

►http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140319-national-geographic-maps-crimea-annexation-russia

via @cdb_77

What has been a question for international leaders is now a question for cartographers: How will Crimea be shown on maps?

Depending on whom you ask, it is either part of Russia or part of Ukraine. For mapmakers, the decision to change the status of a region is based on consultations with multiple authoritative sources and extensive research.

http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/778/cache/crimea-reunification-russia-01_77832_990x742.jpg

The National Geographic Society, one of the only nongovernmental map policy bodies in the world, said Wednesday it had made no formal decision on Crimea, despite erroneous reports claiming it had remade its maps to depict Crimea as part of Russia.

#russie #crimée #ukraine

Arctic Shipping Soars, Led by Russia and Lured by Energy

▻http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2013/11/131129-arctic-shipping-soars-led-by-russia

A momentous season is ending for the world’s newest nautical shortcut.

http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-content/photos/000/739/cache/russian-icebreaker-yamal_73979_990x742.jpg

Stable ice began forming in mid-October along the coast of Siberia’s Yamal Peninsula, the large landmass north of the Arctic Circle that juts into the Kara Sea. The freeze was expected to spread steadily west and southwest, inundating Kara Strait (map) by this week.

Once nature closes that narrow strait to the Barents Sea, it effectively shuts down until next summer the entrance to Russia’s Northern Sea Route (NSR), the 3,000-mile (4,828-kilometer) east-west passage between Europe and Asia that global warming has made possible. (See related “Quiz: What You Don’t Know About Energy in the Changing Arctic.”)

#arctique #transport #transport_maritime

« But the I-400 submarine, longer than a football field, is only one on a wish list of historic submarines that researchers would love to get their hands on. [list of mysteriously lost submarines follow] »

▻http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/12/131203-submarine-war-hawaii-underwater-archaeology-science

#history #submarine #archaeology