From how food is grown to how we generate power, Vaclav Smil’s new book outlines the basic technologies that keep society going and commands us to know them better.
Category: food – Page 154
Aquamarine Solar Project — Smart from Start to Finish
By Helen O’Shea
On a windy, bright day in Lemoore, California another 250 megawatts of clean power was added to California’s energy mix with the dedication of the Aquamarine Solar Project. There are many new solar projects coming online across the country these days, but the Aquamarine project is notable for its innovative development model — it’s part of a 20,000-acre master-planned solar park on fallowed and salt-contaminated agricultural lands in the Westlands Water District in California’s Central Valley.
Disturbed lands farmed for years with no residual habitat value are the perfect place to locate utility-scale solar projects. In 2016 these lands, among many others, were identified as suitable for development by a diverse group of stakeholders through the San Joaquin Valley Least Conflict Solar Planning exercise.
Inside The World’s Biggest Fish Farm
Rhiannon Ashīmkainé Zos Sol’Rhā
Fucking insulting to offer just 5k. I’m joining the kid on trolling musk.
1 Reply.
Chris BartlettThe 19 year old sounded like a jerk tbh. Musk was being seriously nice about it and the kid demanded more, very rude. Basically blackmailing Musk over his personal safety.
View 20 more comments.
Strict Literal Interpretation Is A Hardheaded Drawback Of Machine Learning And Likewise Bad For AI Self-Driving Cars
Here’s an interesting thought experiment. Pretend that you took all words at their literal interpretation, all of the time, wherever you went, and acted upon those words strictly and accordingly. For example, suppose you are driving in your car and perchance see a billboard that is touting the message that you should eat at Joe’s Pizzeria, accessible at the next exit up ahead. The normal course of events would be that you would consult your stomach to ascertain whether you are hungry. Furthermore, if you were hungry, the next question is whether you want pizza. Upon deciding that maybe you do want pizza, the next aspect would be whether you want to take the upcoming exit and eat at Joe’s Pizzeria since you might have in mind some other pizza eatery instead. But, none of those sensible and reasonable ideas rattle around in your noggin. We have agreed that you are going to take everything in a meticulously literal way. By gosh, the billboard instructed you to go eat at Joe’s Pizzeria, so that’s what you are going to do. Come heck or high water, you will take the next exit and you will drive straight to that pizzeria and you will order yourself a juicy hot pizza. This might work out okay and you’ll be happy that you obediently abided by the wording of the billboard. Perhaps though this side trip has made you late for work. Your boss won’t especially appreciate that you opted to be tardy because you just had to get a slice of pizza. Ouch, your boss fires you the moment you proffer such a lame excuse.
Full Story:
Existing AI and Machine Learning is stuck at doing literal interpretation and lacks any common-sense, which bodes for great concerns and especially when it comes to the advent of self-driving cars.
Agrotopia is a giant rooftop greenhouse built atop an existing building
Meta Architectuurbureau and Van Bergen Kolpa Architecten have designed Agrotopia, a greenhouse in Belgium that was added to the roof of an agricultural market to create an urban food production centre.
Located in the city of Roeselare, Agrotopia is Europe’s largest public building for urban food production and will be used to both farm food and educate the public about agriculture.
The 9,500-square-metre greenhouse was built on top of the REO Veiling agricultural auction market. It was commissioned by REO Veiling together with Flemish farming and horticulture research institute Inagro.
Saving Space Station with Special Guest Gary Barnhard
NASA wants to plunge the International Space Station (ISS) into the ocean in 2030. How can we save it?
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Dr. Marilyn Roossinck, Ph.D. — Beneficial Viruses — Professor Emeritus, Penn State University
“Beneficial Viruses” For Human Health, Agriculture And Environmental Sustainability — Dr. Marilyn Roossinck, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Penn State
Dr. Marilyn Roossinck Ph.D. (https://plantpath.psu.edu/directory/mjr25) is Professor Emeritus of plant pathology, environmental microbiology and biology at Penn State University.
Dr. Roossinck is an expert on viruses, from their evolutionary pressures and mechanisms, to the ecology of viral diseases. She performed some of the first experimental evolution studies on plant viruses and pioneered the first virus discovery work in a terrestrial system, by deep sequencing wild plant samples. A specialty of hers is the symbiotic relationships between plants and so-called “beneficial viruses.”
Dr. Roossinck completed her undergraduate work at the University of Colorado, Boulder, receiving a biology degree in 1982. Four years later, she earned her doctorate in microbiology and immunology from the University of Colorado School of Medicine.
Dr. Roossinck joined Penn State as professor of plant pathology and environmental microbiology and of biology in 2011, holding appointments in the College of Agricultural Sciences and the Eberly College of Science. She taught courses in virus ecology for several years at Penn State, and also has published both a popular press book about viruses entitled “Virus: An Illustrated Guide to 101 Incredible Microbes” as well as the academic text “Plant Virus Evolution”.
Grocery Shopping
Someone recently asked me how you shop for groceries on a bike. It struck me as a question lots of people have probably never thought about, so why not write something about it?
I think the first thing to keep in mind is that you’re probably going to have to shop for groceries more than once a week. To me, that’s a feature not a bug, as I mostly try to eat fresh produce, some of which doesn’t keep all that well for a week anyway. Shopping more frequently means I only have to plan meals for a few days at a time. It’s also not that much of a burden, if you shop closer to home, which is easier if you live closer to stuff.
It was probably an easier change for me as well because I actually transitioned to bike shopping from shopping on foot. When we lived downtown, there was a grocery store two blocks away and a mass market retailer between the office and home. It was no big deal to make a stop and grab what I needed.
Abandoned Coal Mines Could Be Transformed Into Geothermal Greenhouses
“They’re almost perfect,” she said.
Because the farms are not dependent upon the seasons they can acheive up to 10 crop cycles per year as opposed to 1 to 2 cycles in normal agriculture, producing up to 80 tons of food annually.
Because of this, one indoor acre is equivalent to 4–6 outdoor acres, Riffat says.