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 Post subject: "The First Human on Earth to Live to Be 1,000 Years Old
PostPosted: Mon Aug 08, 2016 11:48 am 
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"The First Human on Earth to Live to Be 1,000 Years Old is Alive Today" (Weekend Feature)

 


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The first person to live to be 1,000 years old is certainly alive today whether they accomplish it or not, barring accidents and suicide, most people now 40 years or younger can expect to live for centuries, claims Cambridge University geneticist Aubrey de Grey. "The only difference between my labor and the labor of the whole medical profession," de Grey adds, "is that I ponder were in striking distance of keeping people so healthy that at 90 theyll carry on waking up in the same physical state as they were at the age of 30, and their probability of not waking up one morning will be no higher than it was at the age of 30."


The image above is one of 100 cast-iron life-size human figures by British sculptor Anthony Gormley that explore the place of humanity in mood. Gormley who has created and installed them high in the Alps, scattered over 150 sq km (58 sq miles) of some of Austrias most dramatic scenery.


I just dont ponder [immortality] is possible, countered Sherwin Nuland, a former professor of surgery at the Yale School of Medicine. Aubrey and the others who talk of greatly extending lifespan are oversimplifying the science and just dont understand the magnitude of the task. His allot will not succeed. Were it to do so, it would undermine what it means to be human.


Perhaps de Gray is way too optimistic, but others have joined the search for a virtual fountain of youth. In fact, a growing number of scientists, doctors, geneticists and nanotech expertsmany with impeccable academic credentialsare insisting that there is no harsh excuse why ageing cant be dramatically slowed or prevented altogether. Not only is it theoretically possible, they argue, but a scientifically achievable perfection that can and should be reached in time to benefit those alive today.


I am working on immortality, says Michael Rose, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of California, Irvine, who has achieved breakthrough results extending the lives of fruit flies. Twenty years ago the idea of postponing aging, let alone reversing it, was weird and off-the-wall. Today there are good reasons for thinking it is fundamentally possible.


Even the US government finds the field sufficiently promising to fund some of the research. Federal funding for the biology of ageing, excluding labor on ageing-explicit diseases like heart failure and cancer has been running at about $2.4 billion a year, according to the National Institute of Ageing, part of the National Institutes of Health.


So far, the most intriguing results have been spawned by the genetics labs of bigger universities, where anti-ageing scientists have found ways to extend live spans of a anger of organismsincluding mammals. But genetic research is not the only field that may detain the key to eternity.


There are many, many different components of ageing and we are chipping away at all of them, said Robert Freitas at the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing, a non-profit, nanotech group in Palo Alto, California. It will take time and, if you put it in terms of the big developments of modern technology, say the telephone, we are still about 10 years off from Alexander Graham Bell shouting to his assistant through that first device. Still, in the near future, say the next two to four decades, the disease of ageing will be cured.


But not everyone thinks ageing can or should be cured. Some say that humans werent meant to live forever, regardless of whether or not we actually can.


Its interesting that Nuland first says he doesnt ponder it will labor but then adds that if it does, it will undermine humanity. So, which is it? Is it impossible, or are the skeptics just hoping it is?


After all, we already have overpopulation, global warming, marginal resources and other issues to bargain with, so why compound the problem by adding immortality into the blend.


But anti-ageing enthusiasts argue that as our perspectives change and science and technology advance exponentially, new solutions will emerge. Space colonization, for example, along with dramatically improved resource management, could resolve the concerns associated with long life. They excuse that if the Universe goes on seemingly forevermuch of it presumably unusedwhy not populate it?


However, anti-ageing crusaders are coming up against an increasingly influential band of bioconservatives who want to restrict research seeking to unnaturally prolong life. Some of these individuals were influential in persuading President Bush in 2001 to restrict federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. They deny the idea of life extension and anti-ageing research on ethical, moral and ecological grounds.


Leon Kass, the former head of Bushs Council on Bioethics, insists that the finitude of human life is a blessing for every human individual. Bioethicist Daniel Callahan of the Garrison, New York-based Hastings Centre, agrees: There is no known social good coming from the conquest of death.


Maybe theyre right, but then why do we as humans strive so harsh to prolong our lives in the first place? Maybe growing old, getting sick and dying is just a casual, inevitable part of the circle of life, and we may as well accept it.


"But its not inevitable, thats the point," de Grey says. "At the moment, were stuck with this awful fatalism that were all going to get old and sick and die painful deaths. There are a 100,000 people dying each day from age-related diseases. We can break this carnage. Its simply a matter of deciding thats what we should be doing."


The Daily Galaxy via worldhealth.net and BBC News








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 Post subject: NASAs New View of Early Venus --"Oceans and Life"
PostPosted: Fri Aug 12, 2016 4:50 am 
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Venus may have had a superficial liquid-water ocean and habitable surface temperatures for up to 2 billion years of its early history, according to computer modeling of the planets ancient climate by scientists at NASAs Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. Venus today is a hellish world. It has a crushing carbon dioxide atmosphere 90 times as thick as Earths. There is almost no water vapor. Temperatures reach 864 degrees Fahrenheit (462 degrees Celsius) at its surface. Scientists long have theorized that Venus formed out of ingredients similar to Earths, but followed a different evolutionary path.


Measurements by NASAs Pioneer mission to Venus in the 1980s first suggested Venus originally may have had an ocean. However, Venus is closer to the sun than Earth and receives far more sunlight. As a result, the planets early ocean evaporated, water-vapor molecules were broken apart by ultraviolet radiation, and hydrogen escaped to space. With no water left on the surface, carbon dioxide built up in the atmosphere, paramount to a so-called runaway greenhouse effect that created present conditions.


The findings, published this week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, were obtained with a model similar to the type used to predict future climate change on Earth.


"Many of the same tools we use to model climate change on Earth can be adapted to study climates on other planets, both past and present," said Michael Way, a researcher at GISS and the papers direct author. "These results show ancient Venus may have been a very different place than it is today."


Previous studies have shown that how brisk a planet spins on its axis affects whether it has a habitable climate. A day on Venus is 117 Earth days. Until recently, it was assumed that a thick atmosphere like that of modern Venus was required for the planet to have todays slow rotation rate. However, newer research has shown that a lean atmosphere like that of modern Earth could have produced the same result. That means an ancient Venus with an Earth-like atmosphere could have had the same rotation rate it has today.


Another factor that impacts a planets climate is topography. The GISS team postulated ancient Venus had more dry land overall than Earth, especially in the tropics. That limits the amount of water evaporated from the oceans and, as a result, the greenhouse effect by water vapor. This type of surface appears perfection for making a planet habitable; there seems to have been enough water to support abundant life, with sufficient land to reduce the planets sensitivity to changes from incoming sunlight.


Way and his GISS colleagues simulated conditions of a hypothetical early Venus with an atmosphere similar to Earths, a day as long as Venus current day, and a superficial ocean consistent with early data from the Pioneer spacecraft. The researchers added information about Venus topography from radar measurements taken by NASAs Magellan mission in the 1990s, and dense the lowlands with water, leaving the highlands exposed as Venusian continents. The study also factored in an ancient sun that was up to 30 percent dimmer. Even so, ancient Venus still received about 40 percent more sunlight than Earth does today.


"In the GISS models simulation, Venus slow spin exposes its dayside to the sun for almost two months at a time," co-author and fellow GISS scientist Anthony Del Genio said. "This warms the surface and produces rain that creates a thick layer of clouds, which acts like an umbrella to shield the surface from much of the solar heating. The result is mean climate temperatures that are actually a few degrees cooler than Earths today."


The research was done as part of NASAs Planetary Science Astrobiology program through the Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (NExSS) program, which seeks to accelerate the search for life on planets orbiting other stars, or exoplanets, by combining insights from the fields of astrophysics, planetary science, heliophysics, and Earth science. The findings have direct implications for future NASA missions, such as the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite and James Webb Space Telescope, which will try to detect possible habitable planets and characterize their atmospheres.


The Daily Galaxy via NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center














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 Post subject: NASAs Kepler Mission --"Advanced Alien Civilizations Ar
PostPosted: Mon Aug 15, 2016 9:51 am 
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NASAs Kepler Mission --"Advanced Alien Civilizations Are Likely Extinct" (Weekend Feature)

 


 


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The universe is more than 13 billion years old. That means that even if there have been a thousand civilizations in our own galaxy, if they live only as long as we have been aroundroughly ten thousand yearsthen all of them are likely already extinct," said Woodruff Sullivan of the University of Washington about findings based on recent Kepler Mission data. "And others wont evolve until we are long gone. For us to have much chance of success in finding another "contemporary" active technological civilization, on average they must last much longer than our present lifetime.


Are humans unique and alone in the vast universe? This question--summed up in the illustrious Drake equation--has for a half-century been one of the most intractable and uncertain in science. But new research shows that the recent discoveries of exoplanets combined with a broader approach to the question makes it possible to assign a new empirically legitimate probability to whether any other advanced technological civilizations have ever existed.


And it shows that unless the odds of advanced life evolving on a habitable planet are astonishingly low, then human kind is not the universes first technological, or advanced, civilization.


The paper, published in NASAs Astrobiology, also shows for the first time just what pessimism or optimism mean when it comes to estimating the likelihood of advanced extraterrestrial life.


 


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The question of whether advanced civilizations exist elsewhere in the universe has always been vexed with three large uncertainties in the Drake equation, said Adam Frank, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester and co-author of the paper. Weve known for a long time approximately how many stars exist. We didnt know how many of those stars had planets that could potentially harbor life, how often life might evolve and direct to intelligent beings, and how long any civilizations might last before becoming extinct.


Thanks to NASAs Kepler satellite and other searches, we now know that roughly one-fifth of stars have planets in habitable zones, where temperatures could support life as we know it. So one of the three big uncertainties has now been constrained.


Frank said that the third big question--how long civilizations might survive--is still completely unknown. The fact that humans have had rudimentary technology for roughly ten thousand years doesnt really tell us if other societies would last that long or perhaps much longer, he explained.


But Frank and his coauthor, Woodruff Sullivan of the astronomy department and astrobiology program at the University of Washington, found they could eliminate that cycle altogether by simply expanding the question.


Rather than asking how many civilizations may exist now, we ask Are we the only technological species that has ever arisen?" said Sullivan. This shifted focus eliminates the uncertainty of the civilization lifetime question and allows us to address what we call the cosmic archaeological questionhow often in the history of the universe has life evolved to an advanced state?


That still leaves huge uncertainties in careful the probability for advanced life to evolve on habitable planets. Its here that Frank and Sullivan flip the question around. Rather than guessing at the odds of advanced life developing, they calculate the odds against it occurring in order for humanity to be the only advanced civilization in the entire history of the observable universe. With that, Frank and Sullivan then calculated the line between a Universe where humanity has been the sole experiment in civilization and one where others have come before us.


 


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Of course, we have no idea how likely it is that an intelligent technological species will evolve on a given habitable planet, says Frank. But using our method we can tell exactly how low that probability would have to be for us to be the ONLY civilization the Universe has produced. We call that the pessimism line. If the real probability is greater than the pessimism line, then a technological species and civilization has likely happened before.


Using this approach, Frank and Sullivan calculate how unlikely advanced life must be if there has never been another example among the universes ten billion trillion stars, or even among our own Milky Way galaxys hundred billion.


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The result? By applying the new exoplanet data to the universes 2 x 10 to the 22nd power stars, Frank and Sullivan find that human civilization is likely to be unique in the cosmos only if the odds of a civilization developing on a habitable planet are less than about one in 10 billion trillion, or one part in 10 to the 22th power.


One in 10 billion trillion is incredibly small, says Frank. To me, this implies that other intelligent, technology producing species very likely have evolved before us. Ponder of it this way. Before our result youd be considered a pessimist if you imagined the probability of evolving a civilization on a habitable planet were, say, one in a trillion. But even that predict, one chance in a trillion, implies that what has happened here on Earth with humanity has in fact happened about a 10 billion other times over cosmic history!


For smaller volumes the numbers are less extreme. For example, another technological species likely has evolved on a habitable planet in our own Milky Way galaxy if the odds against it evolving on any one habitable planet are better than one chance in 60 billion.


But if those numbers seem to give ammunition to the optimists about the existence of alien civilizations, Sullivan points out that the full Drake equationwhich calculates the odds that other civilizations are around todaymay give solace to the pessimists.


In 1961, astrophysicist Frank Drake developed an equation to predict the number of advanced civilizations likely to exist in the Milky Way galaxy. The Drake equation (top row) has proven to be a constant framework for research, and space technology has advanced scientists knowledge of several variables. But it is impossible to do anything more than predict at variables such as L, the probably longevity of other advanced civilizations.


In new research, Adam Frank and Woodruff Sullivan proposal a new equation (bottom row) to address a slightly different question: What is the number of advanced civilizations likely to have developed over the history of the observable universe? Frank and Sullivans equation draws on Drakes, but eliminates the need for L.


Their argument hinges upon the recent discovery of how many planets exist and how many of those lie in what scientists call the habitable zone planets in which liquid water, and therefore life, could exist. This allows Frank and Sullivan to define a number they call Nast. Nast is the product of N*, the total number of stars; fp, the fraction of those stars that form planets; and np, the average number of those planets in the habitable zones of their stars.


They then set out what they call the Archaelogical-form of the Drake equation, which defines A as the number of technological species that have ever formed over the history of the obervable Universe.


Their equation, A=Nast*fbt, describes A as the product of Nast the number of habitable planets in a given volume of the Universe multiplied by fbt the likelihood of a technological species arising on one of these planets. The volume considered could be, for example, the entire Universe, or just our Galaxy.


Given the vast distances between stars and the fixed speed of light we might never really be capable to have a conversation with another civilization anyway, said Frank. If they were 20,000 light years away then every transfer would take 40,000 years to go back and forth.


But, as Frank and Sullivan point out, even if there arent other civilizations in our galaxy to communicate with now, the new result still has a profound scientific and philosophical importance. From a basic perspective the question is has it ever happened anywhere before? said Frank. Our result is the first time anyone has been capable to set any empirical answer for that question and it is astonishingly likely that we are not the only time and place that an advance civilization has evolved.


According to Frank and Sullivan their result has a practical application as well. As humanity faces its crisis in sustainability and climate change we can wonder if other civilization-building species on other planets have gone through a similar bottleneck and made it to the other side.


We dont even know if its possible to have a high-tech civilization that lasts more than a few centurie, Frank concluded. With Frank and Sullivans new result, scientists can begin using everything they know about planets and climate to begin modeling the interactions of an energy-intensive species with their home world knowing that a large sample of such cases has already existed in the cosmos.


Our results imply that our evolution has not been unique and has probably happened many times before. The other cases are likely to include many energy intensive civilizations dealing with their feedbacks onto their planets as their civilizations grow. That means we can begin exploring the problem using simulations to get a sense of what leads to long lived civilizations and what doesnt.


The Daily Galaxy via University of Rochester


Image credits: top of page with thanks to Muitosabao and ESO Alma Observatory








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 Post subject: "Super-Babies to a Quantum Portal to the Cosmos" -
PostPosted: Thu Aug 18, 2016 11:14 pm 
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"Super-Babies to a Quantum Portal to the Cosmos" --Chinas 2016 Headlines Foreshadow Manage of the Planet & Beyond

 


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In 2016, with headlines announcing yesterdays launch of the first quantum computer to the completion of the worlds largest radio telescope, China is emerging as the new science super power,  opening portals to new and uncharted territory with some of the worlds most powerful and costly research hardware at their disposal.


China foreshadowed its current great leap with several amazing advances in 2015: moving a big step closer to Star Wars laser weapons; creating a new material can support something that is 40,000 times its own weight without bending --the new super-strong foam could form lightweight tank and troop armor; and, in a world first, Chinese scientists edited the genomes of human embryos, sparking a global debate about its ethical implications. All of which has set the bar for the seminal accomplishments of 2016...


1.The largest and most sensitive radio telescope ever built, called BRISK. The five-hundred-meter aperture spherical telescope (BRISK) will search for alien life far out in the cosmos. This is due to be ready by September. With a single dish measuring about 30 soccer fields in area nestled in the remote mountains of Guizhou province, the five-hundred-meter aperture spherical telescope (BRISK) will not only agree access to hitherto unseen parts of the cosmos, but also pick up extremely faint radio signals generated by intelligent life in outer space if it reaches out to make contact. China is also building one of the worlds first astronomical computers to power the giant, alien-seeking telescope. With a dish the size of 30 football grounds,  made of 4,450 panels, scientists have depicted it as a super-sensitive "ear", capable of spotting very weak messages - if there are any - from advanced civilizations.


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2. Yesterdays launch of the worlds first quantum satellite marks new era China puts into service the worlds longest quantum communication network stretching 2,000 kilometers  from Beijing to Shanghai. The launch of the worlds first quantum satellite thrusts mankind into the quantum age, and paves the way for new leaps in spook-confirmation, hack-confirmation communications. The satellite will establish an unbreakable communication link and proposal global coverage. Relevant quantum teleportation experiments will spur the development of quantum computers that could be tens of billions times faster those in use today, which would have profound military, economic and political implications with the ability to compute the entire evolution of the universe in seconds vs centuries for a classical computer.


 


                                         


 


3. Chinese scientists made headlines in 2015 by creating super puppies through DNA manipulation. Moreover, gene editing used by Chinese researchers on human DNA ranked as Science magazines breakthrough of the year. At biology labs, powerful gene-editing tools such as CRISPR/Cas9 have been perfected on animals and are expected to be performed on humans in 2016. The first patient may appear in China, where researchers made the first attempt to edit the genome of a human embryo in search of cures for various diseases. But the labor also courted controversy because the same technology could be used to create super-babies with unnaturally high levels of intelligence and physical strength.


 


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4. A second space lab, a huge neutron accelerator, and a harsh X-ray space telescope: China will also launch its second space laboratory, the Tiangong-2 (above). Earlier this year, it said that improved space docking technology would help with future missions. Also in 2016, China will test-fire its largest neutron accelerator, the China Spallation Neutron Source (shown below). It will also launch the worlds most sensitive harsh X-ray space telescope, called HXMT, as well as the nations first earthquake-warning satellite and other space probes to monitor greenhouse gas emissions in a proposal to better tackle climate change.


 


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5. Is China a new superpower in physics? Bolstered by increased government budgets, Chinas physicists were already publishing more papers than any country except the United States as far back as eight years ago.The labor on quantum teleportation by Professor Pan Jianweis team was regarded as the most distinctive breakthrough of the year in physics, and the discovery of the Weyl fermion, a ghost particle first predicted in 1929, that have unique properties that could make them useful for creating high-speed electronic circuits and quantum computers.


The Daily Galaxy via Mood and South China Morning Post


 








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 Post subject: China to Launch Spacelab Next Week --"1st Step Toward B
PostPosted: Sun Sep 11, 2016 2:26 pm 
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China to Launch Spacelab Next Week --"1st Step Toward Being the Worlds De Facto Space Station"

 


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The vast majority of space technology being developed is dual-use, and so serves Chinese security interests as well," says Johnson-Freese, an expert on the Chinese space program and a professor at the US Naval War College. "China understands the military advantages reaped by US space capabilities for many years, and wants those same capabilities.



Chinas second orbiting spacelab Tiangong-2 and its carrier rocket, Long March 2F, were transferred to the launch pad yesterday at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. China will launch its second spacelab  to test life support systems and refueling technology for its 60 ton modular space station. It will be visited in October by two astronauts aboard Shenzhou-11. The mission will bring China one step closer to the ultimate goal of its three-step human spaceflight program, a large, permanently inhabited space station.


The future of the International Space Station (ISS) is in question and is not guaranteed to operate beyond 2024. European space experts, traditional US space partners, are learning Chinese in anticipation of working with China if ISS is deorbited and the soon-to-be-launched Chinese station becomes the de facto international base, according to Johnson-Freese.


 


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The core space station module, Tianhe-1, is due to be placed in orbit in 2018 by a heavy-lift Long March 5 rocket that will make its debut flight in November. Two more experiment modules and a Hubble-class telescope that will dock with the station will follow in the early 2020s. The space station will also be open to receiving science payloads, astronauts and even further modules from countries around the world, especially developing nations, under an agreement with the United Nations.


Tiangong-2 will orbit at 393 kilometers above the Earth, the same as that of the future space station, where astronauts will undertake technical and repair-related experiments. It will carry space science projects for space biology, fluid physics in microgravity, fundamental physics, Earth science, space astronomy, and space environment. Wu Ji, director-general of the NSSC told gbtimes in February that Tiangong-2 will carry an ocean topography microwave altimeter.


It can measure the topography of the oceans to a very high, precise accuracy, like a few centimeters, and which can be used for study of the Earths gravity field, and also for El Niño, for example, or this kind of large-scale climate change issues.


Another payload on Tiangong-2 is POLAR, a gamma-ray detector involving collaboration between China, Switzerland and Poland that will study one of the most energetic events in the universe Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs), which emit more energy in seconds than our sun does in billions of years.


Measuring the polarization of the GRBs can help eliminate causal mechanisms, with possibilities including massive stars collapsing into black holes and the merging of two neutron stars.


POLAR will observe 10 GRBs per year in a mission lifetime of at least two years, the minimum stated time that Tiangong-2 will be in orbit. Other instruments include an atomic clock using laser-cooled rubidium atoms, a Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) experiment and a Multi-angle Spectral Imager.


If all goes as planned, Tiangong-2 will be visited by Chinas first refueling and cargo vessel, Tianzhou-1 in the first half of next year, launched on a Long March 7 rocket from the new Wenchang spaceport.


And more, we might enlarge.


The Daily Galaxy via gbtimes.com and cctv-america.com


 








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 Post subject: Mapping global fishing activity with machine learning
PostPosted: Tue Sep 20, 2016 4:55 pm 
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The worlds oceans and fisheries are at a turning point. Over a billion people depend on wild-caught fish for their primary source of protein. Fisheries are intertwined with global food security, slave toil issues, livelihoods, sovereign wealth and biodiversity but our fisheries are being harvested beyond sustainable levels. Fish populations have already plummeted by 90 percent for some species within the perpetuate generation, and the human population is only growing larger. One in five fish entering global markets is harvested illegally, or is unreported or unregulated. But amidst all these sobering trends, were also better equipped to face these challenges thanks to the rise of technology, increased availability of information, and a growing international desire to create a sustainable future.

Today, in partnership with Oceana and SkyTruth, were launching Global Fishing Watch, a beta technology platform intended to increase awareness of fisheries and influence sustainable policy through transparency. Global Fishing Observe combines cloud computing technology with satellite data to provide the worlds first global dogma of commercial fishing activities. It gives anyone around the world citizens, governments, industry, and researchers a free, simple, online platform to visualize, track, and share information about fishing activity worldwide.

Global Fishing Observe, the first global dogma of large scale commercial fishing activity over time

At any given time, there are about 200,000 vessels publicly broadcasting their location at sea through the Automatic Identification System (AIS). Their signals are picked up by dozens of satellites and thousands of terrestrial receivers. Global Fishing Observe runs this information more than 22 million points of information per day through machine learning classifiers to determine the type of ship (e.g., cargo, tug, sail, fishing), what kind of fishing gear (longline, purse seine, trawl) theyre using and where theyre fishing based on their movement patterns. To do this, our research partners and fishery experts have manually classified thousands of vessel tracks as training data to teach our algorithms what fishing looks like. We then apply that learning to the entire dataset 37 billion points over the perpetuate 4.5 years enabling anyone to see the individual tracks and fishing activity of every vessel along with its designate and flag state.
An individual vessel fishing off Madagascar

This data can help inform sustainable policy and identify suspicious behaviors for further investigation. By understanding what areas of the ocean are being heavily fished, agencies and governments can make important decisions about how much fishing should be allowed in any given area. Often, fish populations are so depleted that the only way to ensure they are replenished is to create no take areas where fishing is not allowed. Our hope is that this new technology can help governments and other organizations make decisions about which areas need protection and monitor if policies are respected.
Kiribatis Phoenix Island Protected Area transitioning from heavy tuna fishing to a protected area.

Partners have already started using Global Fishing Oberve and have committed to providing additional data sources for greater impact:

  • Indonesias Minister of Fisheries and Marine Affairs, Susi Pudjiastuti, has committed to making the governments Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) public in Global Fishing Observe in 2017. Ibu Susi has been a progressive leader for transparency in fisheries with other governments now expressing similar interest to collaborate.
  • Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations will collaborate on new research methodologies for reporting spatial fishery and vessel statistics, building on Global Fishing Observe and developing transparency tools to support their member states in improving the monitoring, shape and surveillance of fishing activities.
  • Trace Register, a seafood digital supply chain company, has committed to using Global Fishing Observe to authenticate catch documentation for its customers such as Whole Foods.
  • Bali Seafood, the largest exporter of snapper from Indonesia, has teamed up with Pelagic Data Systems, manufacturers of cellular and solar powered tracking devices to bring the same transparency for small scale and artisanal fishing vessels, into Global Fishing Oberve as part of a pilot program.

Weve also developed a Global Fishing Observe Research Program with 10 leading institutions from around the world. By combining Google tools, methodologies, and datasets in a collaborative environment, theyre modeling economic, environmental, policy, and climate change implications on fisheries at a scale not otherwise possible.

Global Fishing Observe was not possible five years ago. From a technology perspective, satellites were just beginning to collect vessel positions over the open ocean, and the "global coverage" was spotty. There has been tremendous growth in machine learning with applications in new fields. Policy and regulatory frameworks have evolved, with the United States, European Union, and other nations and Regional Fishery Management Organizations now requiring that vessels broadcast their positions. Market forces and import laws are beginning to demand transparency and traceability, both as a positive differentiator and for risk management. All of these forces interact and shape each other.

Today, Global Fishing Observe is an early preview of what is possible. Were committed to continuing to build tools, partnerships, and access to information to help restore our abundant ocean for generations to come.


Go explore your ocean at www.globalfishingwatch.org


Posted By: Brian Sullivan, Google Proceed - Global Fishing Watch, Sr. Program Manager - Google Ocean & Earth Outreach





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 Post subject: What Trump might say
PostPosted: Wed Nov 30, 2016 9:24 am 
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During his campaign, US President-elect Donald Trump called climate change "a hoax" and promised to cancel the Paris agreement of 2015. Parties to the agreement now insist that he renege, saying US credibility is at stake.



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 Post subject: Trump Team Asking for DOE Staff Who Worked on Climate Change
PostPosted: Thu Dec 29, 2016 5:27 am 
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Trump Team Asking for DOE Staff Who Worked on Climate Change: Document

Environmental groups fear document indicates a potential purge of policymakers.

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 Post subject: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau documents the changing landscape of Gr
PostPosted: Sat Feb 11, 2017 8:24 am 
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Nikolaj Coster-Waldau documents the changing landscape of Greenland

Editors note: Todays post comes from Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Game of Thrones star and newly-appointed U.N. Goodwill Ambassador. Nikolaj partnered with our Street Belief team to collect imagery of Greenlands beautiful and changing landscape, where the impact of global warming can be seen firsthand.


Year after year weve seenrecord high temperaturesacross our planet due to global warming. And Greenland, which I consider my familys second home, is changing faster than anywhere else onEarth. Here the effects of climate change are easy to see: as sea ice melts and glaciers crumble, places once covered in ice are now bare land.




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Greenland Glacier





SeeGreenland Glacierin Timelapse

Late last year, the Google Maps team came to visit and we went on an adventure to collect Street Belief imagery of Greenland. Statistics, scientific reports and graphs can be bewildering, but I hope seeing these images will help people understand the drastic changes taking place in Greenland, and inspire you to fall in love with it the way I have. Unless we change these climate trends, the next time we bring the trekker to Greenland the landscape may be unrecognizable from what you see today.
















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alt="Nikolaj Trekker "


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Our first break is the town of Igaliku. With a population of just 27, Igaliku is one of Greenlands most idyllic villagesa smattering of brightly colored houses and hillsides dotted with sheep. As the landscape has changed, so too has the local economy. Alongside new opportunities to mine precious metals that were previously inaccessible, the changing patterns of freezing and melting glaciers have dramatically disrupted the fishing and hunting lifestyles that have sustained the local Inuit population for centuries.
















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Greenland is also known for its hot springs. The geothermal springs on the remote island of Uunartoq are one of my favorite destinations, with views of icebergs and towering snow-capped mountain peaks.
















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Our final break is the majestic glacial-covered Qoorog Fjord, where the second largest ice sheet in the world terminates into the sea. The ice sheet is melting at an increased pacepouring 300 billion tons of ice into the ocean each year. This melting harms distinctive coastal ecosystems, local food and water supplies and is a major contribution to rising sea levels.
















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We have a responsibility to protect this beautiful planet we live on, and Im starting at my own front door. But everywhere and everyone is vulnerable to the effects of our warming planet. Lets band together and do something about itlearn about global efforts to combat climate change and discover ways to take action.





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 Post subject: Greening of Antarctica --"Plant Life is Growing Rapidly
PostPosted: Fri May 19, 2017 6:41 pm 
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Greening of Antarctica --"Plant Life is Growing Rapidly Due to Climate Change"

 


6a00d8341bf7f753ef01b8d24a6e92970c


 


Plant life on Antarctica is growing rapidly due to climate change, scientists have found. "The sensitivity of moss growth to past temperature rises suggests that ecosystems will alter rapidly under future warming, paramount to major changes in the biology and landscape of this iconic region," said Professor Dan Charman, who led the research project at the University of Exeter. "In brief, we could see Antarctic greening to parallel well-established observations in the Arctic.


"Although there was variability within our data, the consistency of what we found across different sites was striking." The research team, which included scientists from the University of Cambridge and British Antarctic Survey, say their data indicate that plants and soils will change substantially even with only modest further warming.


 


Few plants live on the continent, but scientists studying moss have found a sharp increase in biological activity in the last 50 years. A team including scientists from the University of Exeter used moss bank cores -- which are well preserved in Antarcticas cold conditions -- from an area spanning about 400 miles.


They tested five cores from three sites and found major biological changes had occurred over the past 50 years right across the Antarctic Peninsula.


"Temperature increases over roughly the past half century on the Antarctic Peninsula have had a dramatic effect on moss banks growing in the region," said Dr Matt Amesbury, of the University of Exeter.


"If this continues, and with increasing amounts of ice-free land from continued glacier retreat, the Antarctic Peninsula will be a much greener place in the future."


Recent climate change on the Antarctic Peninsula is well documented, with warming and other changes such as increased precipitation and wind strength.


Weather records mostly began in the 1950s, but biological records preserved in moss bank cores can provide a longer-cycle context about climate change.


The scientists analysed data for the last 150 years, and found lucid evidence of "changepoints" - points in time after which biological activity clearly increased -- in the past half century.


The same group of researchers published a study focussing on one site in 2013, and the new research confirms that their unprecedented finding can be applied to a much larger region.


Plant life only exists on about 0.3% of Antarctica, but the findings provide one way of measuring the extent and effects of warming on the continent.


The paper, published in the journal Current Biology, is entitled: "Widespread biological response to rapid warming on the Antarctic Peninsula."


The researchers now allot to examine core records dating back over thousands of years to test how much climate change affected ecosystems before human activity started causing global warming.


The Daily Galaxy via University of Exeter


 




       





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