A shutdown would have devastating global impacts and must not be allowed to happen, researchers say

Climate scientists have detected warning signs of the collapse of the Gulf Stream, one of the planet’s main potential tipping points.

The research found “an almost complete loss of stability over the last century” of the currents that researchers call the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). The currents are already at their slowest point in at least 1,600 years, but the new analysis shows they may be nearing a shutdown.

Creating a Vector Graphics File From Data: This Instructable describes how to generate a vector image (in SVG format) from a set of data, which could then be imported into a vector graphics editor like Inkscape or Adobe Illustrator, or used with a laser cut or CNC. Automatic generation of a …

This Instructable describes how to generate a vector image (in SVG format) from a set of data, which could then be imported into a vector graphics editor like Inkscape or Adobe Illustrator, or used with a laser cut or CNC. Automatic generation of a vector file is useful whenever you have a set of numbers that describe an image, like a graph of a large dataset, the cross sections of a model, or a math generated image. Or if you have a pattern for a design that you want to quickly change dimensions or scale. The Insctuctable will describe the way the SVG file works, how to create lines from sets of coordinates, and will provide a sample Excel script that will generate lines from a series of points.

Read the full article at: www.instructables.com

#EmpathyCircles: The best #Empathy building practice.  http://www.empathycircle.com

by David Hall

Empathy is at the core of UX design. But sometimes the fear of the unexpected and own presumptions win over the ability to listen effectively. In this article, experienced product designer David Hall discusses what’s behind effective listening and how to obtain accurate answers from users.

Japanese Artist Tatsuya Tanaka Has Been Creating Miniature Dioramas Every Day For Seven Years

ミニチュア写真家・見立て作家 田中達也の公式サイト。日常の物を別の何かに見立てたミニチュアアートを毎日更新中

Materials scientists can now shuffle layered compounds together, much like combining two different decks of cards. The technique, recently discovered by a team of researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory, is leading to development of new materials with unusual electron transport properties that have potential applications in next-generation quantum technologies.

“Now, we have demonstrated that we can mechanochemically design novel layered heterostructures, control their composition and tune their properties,” said Ihor Hlova, a scientist in the Divisions of Materials Sciences and Engineering at Ames Laboratory. “This opens a way to a variety of different combinations—the possibilities are basically unlimited.”

For the first time, astronomers have uncovered evidence of water vapor in the atmosphere of Jupiter’s moon Ganymede. This water vapor forms when ice from the moon’s surface sublimates—that is, turns from solid to gas.

Scientists used new and archival datasets from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to make the discovery, published in the journal Nature Astronomy. Previous research has offered circumstantial evidence that Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system, contains more water than all of Earth’s oceans. However, temperatures there are so cold that water on the surface is frozen solid. Ganymede’s ocean would reside roughly 100 miles below the crust; therefore, the water vapor would not represent the evaporation of this ocean. Astronomers re-examined Hubble observations from the last two decades to find this evidence of water vapor.

The global economy’s business-as-usual approach to climate change has seen Earth’s “vital signs” deteriorate to record levels, an influential group of scientists said Wednesday, warning that several climate tipping points were now imminent. The researchers, part of a group of more than 14,000 scientists who have signed on to an initiative declaring a worldwide climate emergency, said that governments had consistently failed to address the root cause of climate change: “the overexploitation of the Earth”.

Since a similar assessment in 2019, they noted an “unprecedented surge” in climate-related disasters, including flooding in South America and Southeast Asia, record-shattering heatwaves and wildfires in Australia and the US, and devastating cyclones in Africa and South Asia. Of 31 “vital signs”—key metrics of planetary health that include greenhouse gas emissions, glacier thickness, sea-ice extent and deforestation—they found that 18 hit record highs or lows. For example, despite a dip in pollution linked to the pandemic, levels of atmospheric CO2 and methane hit all-time highs in 2021.

Greenland and Antarctica both recently showed all-time low levels of ice mass, and glaciers are melting 31 percent faster than they did just 15 years ago, the authors said. Both ocean heat and global sea levels set new records since 2019, and the annual loss rate of the Brazilian Amazon reached a 12-year high in 2020.

Highlights of a landmark Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) draft report on the effects of a warming planet on nature. Echoing previous research, they said that forest degradation linked to fire, drought and logging was causing parts of the Brazilian Amazon to now act as a source of carbon, rather than absorb the gas from the atmosphere. Livestock such as cows and sheep are now at record levels, numbering more than four billion and with a mass exceeding that of all humans and wild land mammals combined, they said.

Tim Lenton, director of the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute and study co-author, said the recent record-breaking heatwave in the Western United States and Canada showed that the climate had already begun to “behave in shocking, unexpected ways. We need to respond to the evidence that we are hitting climate tipping points with equally urgent action to decarbonize the global economy and start restoring instead of destroying nature,” he said.

Don’t expect to see any of these ten moths hovering around a streetlight, because they are just a small selection of the worlds rarest moths and while they might not be the most amazing looking, they are still worthy of our attention…