BBC News – Scientists find evidence of wheat in UK 8,000 years ago

By Helen Briggs Environment Correspondent, BBC News

The site is submerged in the Solent
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• Ancient farmers used manure on crops

Wheat was present in Britain 8,000 years ago, according to new archaeological evidence.

Fragments of wheat DNA recovered from an ancient peat bog suggests the grain was traded or exchanged long before it was grown by the first British farmers.

The research, published in Science, suggests there was a sophisticated network of cultural links across Europe.

The grain was found at what is now a submerged cliff off the Isle of Wight.

Farming of plants and animals first appeared in the Near East, with the technology spreading along two main routes into Europe.

…(read more).

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Watch the world’s first flying motor car! | Ralph Simon

TEDx Talks
Published on Feb 27, 2015
How many of us have at some point wished to be able to fly? In this talk, Ralph Simon introduces the audience to an innovator from Austria named Štefan Klein who created ‘the world’s first flying motor car.’

In this talk, Ralph introduces the audience to ‘the world’s first flying motor car.’
Ralph Simon is one of the founders of the modern global mobile entertainment and content industry. He is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Mobilium Global, the mobile strategic group and think-tank based in London, providing high level creative and development advice and guidance to media companies, content creators and designers, multi-national telco operators, handset & tablet makers, technology infrastructure companies, brands, ad agency groups and platform providers around the world. Mobilium has worked with artists and trans-media global star such as Madonna, Irish rock group U2, and Lady Gaga.

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Energy Poverty: let there be light | Steve Huff

TEDx Talks

Published on Feb 27, 2015

Energy poverty causes suffering, illiteracy, sickness, rape and even death. Its victims are some of our world’s poorest people, particularly women & girls. Steve Huff calls on us to do better and fight this silent predator in the dark.

Steve is a start-up specialist with over a dozen start-ups to his credit, in addition to being the Chairman of The Light Foundation, a non-profit organisation created to combat energy poverty through the implementation of sustainable energy and off grid lighting solutions in order to improve the health, education and economic situation of all people whom live their lives without electricity.

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U.N. clarification: North-South climate finance may be closer to lower bound of their estimate

Martin Stadelmann and Timmons Roberts | February 26, 2015 11:08am

Today, the U.N. has published a “clarification note” where it explains that the actual number for North-South climate finance may be closer to the lower bound of the $40-175 billionmentionedin its“Biennial Assessment and Overview of Climate Finance Flows”report. That report, released at the U.N. negotiations in Lima, Peru in December, was a landmark in assessing climate finance flows, and a valuable effort to support discussions during this pivotal year for global climate politics.

This is an important clarification. According to our own estimates, the actual number for North-South climate finance is clearly closer to $40 than $175 billion. The upper bound of the original U.N. estimate relied on a private climate finance number ($27-123 billion) in our paper “Difficulties in accounting for private finance in international climate policy,” which actually refers to all private finance in the global south that is “mobilized by developed country governments”(e.g. through carbon markets or development banks)—not private finance flowing North-to-South. That is an important difference. Estimates for North-South flows both in our paper and the last two editions of Climate Policy Initiative’s Global Landscape of Climate Finance are much lower than the figures cited by the U.N. report (see Figure 1). Our own 2013 estimate for North-South private climate finance flows was $10-37 billion, comprising foreign direct investment for renewable energy, recycling, and environmental technology manufacturing.

If we take the $2-37 billion range for North-South private finance according to existing estimates (see Figure 1) and add the U.N. estimate of $35-50 billion for North-South public finance (see Figure 2), total North-South climate finance is somewhere between $37 billion and $87 billion, clearly closer to the lower bound of the U.N. estimate of $40-175 billion, and certainly less than half of the upper bound.
…(read more).

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Climate engineering: In from the cold

Keith says new reports will likely boost deeper look at geoengineering concepts

In a question-and-answer session, Keith spoke about what impact the new reports may have on the policy and science of geoengineering. Eliza Grinnell/SEAS Communications
February 20, 2015 | Editor’s Pick Popular

By Paul Karoff, SEAS Communications

When the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) released a pair of reports this month on geoengineering, which involves deliberately intervening in the climate system to counter global warming, discussion of the controversial topic moved into the mainstream science community. The reports concluded that geoengineering is no silver bullet, and that further research is needed.

David Keith, Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics at Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and professor of public policy at Harvard Kennedy School, has been a leading voice for assessing the risks and implications of large-scale deployment of geoengineering to help cool the planet. Keith’s 2013 book, “A Case for Climate Engineering,” lays out how geoengineering might fit into a larger program for managing climate change (complementing steps to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and devise adaptation strategies).

He recently detailed a potential small-scale solar radiation management experiment in which chemicals would be dispersed in the high atmosphere to reflect sunlight away from the Earth’s surface. He also has suggested a scenario for analyzing the risks and benefits of geoengineering, and proposed frameworks for the governance of geoengineering testing by nation-states.

…(read more).

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The Philosophy of As If with Kwame Anthony Appiah

University of California Television (UCTV)

Published on Feb 27, 2015

(Visit: http://www.uctv.tv/) A leading moral and political philosopher, Kwame Anthony Appiah is Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University. He explores the ideas of the philosopher Hans Vahinger, who argued that our theories of the world involved understanding things “as if” what is in fact false were true. He uses Vahinger’s ideas to discuss a contemporary philosophical proposal, due to Dan Dennett, that says that human beings can be understood by way of an “intentional strategy” that “consists of treating the object whose behavior you want to predict as a rational agent with beliefs and desires and other mental states …” Since, as Appiah suggests, we are not fully rational, there is a puzzle about why this should work.
Recorded on 02/06/2015. Series: “UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures” [Humanities] [Show ID: 29293]

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ISIL video shows destruction of Mosul artefacts

Al Jazeera English

Published on Feb 27, 2015

The destroyed antiques from Nineveh are an inspiration to many Iraqi citizens, who say it represents their ancestors.Al Jazeera’s Jane Arraf reports from Baghdad.

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Antiquities Scholar: Islamic State’s Destruction of Museum & Library is Cultural & Ethnic Cleansing

democracynow

Published on Feb 27, 2015

http://democracynow.org – Video has surfaced showing militants from the Islamic State destroying ancient artifacts at a museum in the Iraqi city of Mosul. Men are seen toppling statues and using sledgehammers and drills to destroy the artifacts. The Guardian reports one of the statues destroyed was a winged-bull Assyrian protective deity that dates back to the 9th century B.C. The Islamic State has also reportedly destroyed the Mosul public library, which housed more than 8,000 rare books and manuscripts. On Thursday, UNESCO, the cultural arm of the United Nations, called for the U.N. Security Council to hold an emergency meeting on protecting Iraq’s cultural heritage. “I condemn this as a deliberate attack against Iraq’s millennial history and culture, and as an inflammatory incitement to violence and hatred,” said UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova. We speak to Zainab Bahrani, professor of Near Eastern and East Mediterranean art and archeology at Columbia University. She has worked extensively in Iraq, including periods as senior adviser to Iraq’s Ministry of Culture and a UNESCO consultant.

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“A Historic Decision”: Tim Wu, Father of Net Neutrality, Praises FCC Vote to Preserve Open Internet

democracynow

Published on Feb 27, 2015

http://democracynow.org – Advocates of a free and open Internet are celebrating a vote Thursday by the Federal Communications Commission to approve strong net neutrality rules. The move bans “paid prioritization” by Internet service providers who seek to charge extra fees from content producers, as well as blocking and throttling of lawful content. The new rules will also apply to mobile access. The vote is seen as a major victory for grassroots advocacy groups — including Fight for the Future, Demand Progress, Free Press, Color of Change and Center for Media Justice — who have spent years campaigning to preserve an open Internet. We speak to longtime open Internet advocate Tim Wu. He is a policy advocate and Columbia University law professor who is known for coining the term “net neutrality” back in 2002.

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Libya Prepares To Depot 100 Senegalese Migrants

CCTV Africa

Published on Feb 27, 2015

The flow of illegal migrants has also been a headache for Libyan authorities. Thousands of African migrants use Libya as a springboard to get to Europe.Now Libya has decided to deport more than a hundred Senegalese migrants, who are being held in the city of Misrata. Susan Mwongeli reports

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