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There are 7,000 languages spoken on Earth. What are the costs — and benefits — of our modern-day Tower of Babel?
Via Rebecca Cofield
"There are around 6,000 cargo vessels out on the ocean right now, carrying 20,000,000 shipping containers, which are delivering most of the products you see around you. And among all the containers are a special subset of temperature-controlled units known in the global cargo industry, in all seriousness, as reefers. 70% of what we eat passes through the global cold chain, a series of artificially-cooled spaces, which is where the reefer comes into play."
Via Michael Miller
"Washington may be the political center of the free world, but its 670,000 residents don’t have a say in the national legislature. What they do have is a nonvoting delegate in the House of Representatives. Eleanor Holmes Norton can introduce legislation and vote in committee, but she can’t vote on the House floor. Over the course of 13 terms, the 'Warrior on the Hill' been fighting to change that."
During the Depression, cheap, nutritious and filling food was prioritized — often at the expense of taste. Jane Ziegelman and Andy Coe, authors of A Square Meal, discuss food trends of the time.
Greenland has the world's highest suicide rate. And teen boys are at the highest risk. Like native people all around the Arctic — and all over the world — Greenlanders were seeing the deadly effects of rapid modernization and unprecedented cultural interference. American Indians and Alaska Natives (many of whom share Inuit roots with Greenlanders) had already seen many of their communities buckle under the same pressures.
What makes an idea, a brand, or a behavior catch fire? This hour, TED speakers explore the mysteries behind the many things we spread: laughter and sadness, imagination, viruses and viral ideas.
The BBC's Celia Hatton finds out why one restaurant in Shanghai is serving up American-style Chinese food
Via Allison Anthony
Notes on an Imagined Plaque to be Added to the Statue of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, Upon Hearing that the Memphis City Counci has Voted to Move it and the Exhumed Remains of General Forrest and his Wife, Mary Ann Montgomery Forrest, from their Current Location in a Park Downtown, to the Nearby Elmwood Cemetery
Via Mike Busarello's Digital Storybooks
"Ross McNutt has a superpower — he can zoom in on everyday life, then rewind and fast-forward to solve crimes in a shutter-flash. But should he?
In 2004, when casualties in Iraq were rising due to roadside bombs, Ross McNutt and his team came up with an idea. With a small plane and a 44 mega-pixel camera, they figured out how to watch an entire city all at once, all day long. Whenever a bomb detonated, they could zoom onto that spot and then, because this eye in the sky had been there all along, they could scroll back in time and see - literally see - who planted it. After the war, Ross McNutt retired from the airforce, and brought this technology back home with him. Manoush Zomorodi and Alex Goldmark from the podcast 'Note to Self' give us the low-down on Ross’s unique brand of persistent surveillance, from Juarez, Mexico to Dayton, Ohio. Then, once we realize what we can do, we wonder whether we should."
Tags: governance, remote sensing, geospatial.
A billion people worldwide live in slums, largely invisible to city services and governments — but not to satellites.
Via Dawn Haas Tache
Robert Peston crunches the numbers as finance ministers meet for vital loan talks.
Drexel University is taking a hands-on approach to redeveloping one of Philadelphia's poorest neighborhoods with a new center designed to serve not just students but mainly local residents.
Inequality isn't just about money. It's also about information. The lack of reliable data about developing countries makes things like development work and disaster relief much harder.
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She lived with us for 56 years. She raised me and my siblings without pay. I was 11, a typical American kid, before I realized who she was. The Spanish Crown eventually began phasing out slavery at home and in its colonies, but parts of the Philippines were so far-flung that authorities couldn’t keep a close eye. Traditions persisted under different guises, even after the U.S. took control of the islands in 1898. Today even the poor can have utusans or katulongs (“helpers”) or kasambahays (“domestics”), as long as there are people even poorer. The pool is deep.
Austin's Mueller neighborhood is a new-urbanist dream, designed to be convivial, walkable and energy-efficient. Every house has a porch or stoop, and all the cars are hidden away.
After moving here, respondents said, they spend an average of 90 fewer minutes a week in the car, and most reported higher levels of physical activity. The poll results seem to validate new-urbanist gospel: good design, like sidewalks, street lighting, extensive trails and parkland, can improve social and physical health. Part II: A Texas Community Takes on Racial Tensions Once Hidden Under The Surface.
Tags: housing, urban, planning, urbanism, unit 7 cities, neighborhood, podcast.
Via Lindley Amarantos
For 50 years, high school students in Rabun County have chronicled their region's disappearing traditions and mountain people, from blacksmiths to moonshiners, in publications and a living museum.
"It's something you can see on every block in most major cities. You probably see one every day and never give give it a second thought. But in Yangon, Myanmar in 2013, an ATM was a small miracle. For decades, Myanmar was cut off from the rest of the world. There were international sanctions, and no one from the U.S. or Europe did business there."
"Most food, if we trace it back far enough, began as a seed. And the business of supplying those seeds to farmers has been transformed over the past half-century. Small-town companies have given way to global giants. A new round of industry consolidation is now underway. Multibillion-dollar mergers are in progress, or under discussion, that could put more than half of global seed sales in the hands of three companies." Tags: food, economic, food production, agribusiness, podcast.
Hidden beneath the 245,000 square miles that make up the Great Plains, resides a lake that’s one of our greatest water assets: The Ogallala Aquifer. Haven’t heard of it? Farming the plains would be unprofitable at best without it, as shown by the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. At the time, the aquifer’s existence was known, but the technology to tap into it wasn’t.
A hundred years ago, a Polish physician created a language that anyone could learn easily. The hope was to bring the world closer together. Today Esperanto speakers say it's helpful during travel.
Via CT Blake
In Indonesia, efforts are underway to grow palms in a sustainable way. But that's putting a squeeze on small farmers.
Palm oil is in everything, from pizza dough and chocolate to laundry detergent and lipstick. Nongovernmental organizations blame it for contributing to assorted evils, from global warming to human rights abuses. But in the past year, this complex global industry has changed, as consumers put pressure on producers to show that they're not destroying forests, killing rare animals, grabbing land or exploiting workers.
Tags: Indonesia, conservation, environment, consumption, SouthEastAsia, podcast.
There may be a counterintuitive explanation for the deep freeze that hit New England this winter: The rapidly warming Arctic is causing big disruptions in the jet stream, which carries weather across North America. Is this the worst winter you've experienced?
Tags: physical, weather and climate, Arctic, Boston, climate change, podcast.
Via Seth Dixon
Austin's Mueller neighborhood is a new-urbanist dream, designed to be convivial, walkable and energy-efficient. Every house has a porch or stoop, and all the cars are hidden away. After moving here, respondents said, they spend an average of 90 fewer minutes a week in the car, and most reported higher levels of physical activity. The poll results seem to validate new-urbanist gospel: good design, like sidewalks, street lighting, extensive trails and parkland, can improve social and physical health. Part II: A Texas Community Takes on Racial Tensions Once Hidden Under The Surface. Tags: housing, urban, planning, urbanism, unit 7 cities, neighborhood, podcast.
"Prior to the 1960’s, the Aral Sea was the fourth largest lake and approximately the size of Ireland. Fed by both the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers carrying snowmelt from the mountains to the southeast, the Aral Sea moderated the climate and provided a robust fishing industry that straddled the present-day border between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. For the map savvy, that Aral Sea would be almost unrecognizable—it has long appeared as two basins known as the North and the South Aral Sea since the rivers were diverted for crops, leading to the Aral Sea’s alarming shrinkage. Recent NASA satellite imagery shows the decline that the Aral Sea has undergone since 2000, leaving the South Aral Sea completely dried up in 2014. " Tags: podcast, Maps 101, historical, environment, Central Asia, environment modify, Aral Sea.
Via Mike Busarello's Digital Storybooks
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