The large size of the human brain is what makes us (arguably) the most intelligent creatures on Earth, but new research surprisingly reveals our brains may have been slowly shrinking from about 3,000 years ago. Are we getting less smart? Scientists aren’t ready to declare that yet, but have found a possible answer for the brain size mystery by studying ants and the use of collective intelligence in their social organizations.

Smaller Brain = Less Intelligence?

Researchers have found that for much of human evolutionary history our brains kept growing. In fact, if you count from our last shared ancestors with chimpanzees six million years ago, the human brain size almost quadrupled. This happened thanks in part to the improving diet and nutrition of early humans. Cro Magnons, the Homo sapiens that had the largest brains in history were alive from 20,000 to 30,000 years ago. But as the recent study from scientists at Dartmouth and Boston Universities points out, around 3,000 years ago, our brains began to diminish.

The Size Of Our Brain Through History

Previous research estimated that, over the past 20,000 years, the average volume of the human brain went from 1,500 cubic centimeters (cc) to 1,350 cc — shrinking by about 150 cc, or 10% (the size of a tennis ball, as commentators have pointed out.) “Most people are aware that humans have unusually large brains—significantly larger than predicted from our body size. In our deep evolutionary history, human brain size dramatically increased,” said the new study’s other co-author James Traniello, of Boston University. “The reduction in human brain size was unexpected.”

Our Brain Was Always Growing And Growing. And Then It Stopped. 

The big question of course is, “Why is our evolution going in reverse?” The interdisciplinary research team, which included a biological anthropologist, a behavioral ecologist and an evolutionary neurobiologist, write in the study that their dating techniques do not “support hypotheses concerning brain size reduction as a by-product of body size reduction, a result of a shift to an agricultural diet, or a consequence of self-domestication.”

Why Did Our Brains Start Shrinking? Here’s Why They Did Not. 

The scientists believe that the reason we don’t need the same size brains lies in the creation of our social systems, which favor distributed gathering and sharing of knowledge and information while offering advantages in “group-level decision-making.” Since brains use a lot of energy, being able to draw upon the knowledge gathered within a larger society would require less individual brain energy to be expended in order to store and process information. Thus a smaller brain would be able to do the job just as well.

So, Why Did Our Brains Start Shrinking?

Interestingly, the researchers also suggest that the advent of writing around 5,000 years ago likely had a pronounced effect on the “neural architectures” of individual human brains by increasing the power of group cognition. Decision-making by an increasingly interconnected group could have led to “adaptive group responses exceeding the cognitive accuracy and speed of individual decisions and had a fitness consequence.” This could have led to the human brain size decrease “as a consequence of metabolic cost savings.”

But What Was The Start Of It All?

Unexpectedly, the researchers arrived at their conclusions by studying ants. As the scientists write in their paper, “Humans live in social groups in which multiple brains contribute to the emergence of collective intelligence.” While understanding the historical forces affecting brain evolution in humans is a complex undertaking, with only the fossil record to use for evidence, the researchers looked at ant communities.

And What Brought About That Idea?

“The remarkable ecological diversity of ants and their species richness encompasses forms convergent in aspects of human sociality, including large group size, agrarian life histories, division of labor, and collective cognition,” explain the scientists in the study. The range of social systems in ant societies allowed them to test out hypotheses and come up with insights that provide a general look at how selective forces can affect brain size.

Ant Sociality And Human Sociality

The research team focused specifically on creating computational models that represent patterns of worker-ant brain size and energy use, looking at groups of Oecophylla weaver ants, Atta leafcutter ants, and the common garden ant Formica. What they found is that collective intelligence and division of labor had an effect on the variation in brain sizes. In a group with shareable knowledge and individual specialization in particular tasks, brains were likely to adapt for the sake of efficiency, consequently diminishing in size.

Division Of Labour Affects Brain Size

“Ant and human societies are very different and have taken different routes in social evolution,” Traniello shared. “Nevertheless, ants also share with humans important aspects of social life such as group decision-making and division of labor, as well as the production of their own food (agriculture). These similarities can broadly inform us of the factors that may influence changes in human brain size.”

Ants Are Not Humans, Of Course

A review of the book in The American Journal of Sociology read: “After many years” observation of the behaviour of ants, the author has written a popular book attempting to show how ant societies function, how they solve many of the ‘social problems’ confronting man - war, reproduction, sustenance, pressure groups, security, democracy, and totalitarianism. In addition, one finds a tracing of the rise of the ants as a race, their diversification, their struggles for dominance, their tastes for odors, forms, and textures, their modes of ‘gossip’ and memories.”

In 1946, Dr. Caryl P. Haskins Wrote “Of Ants and Men”

As the author of “Of Ants and Men” himself remarked in 1946, the question is how far can we compare these ant societies with our own without becoming hopelessly involved in a bog of anthropomorphism? In other words, he goes on to reflect, can we legitimately “go to the ant” without reading into our findings many things that really do not exist? While this new research doesn’t have definitive answers, the new modeling is a fascinating step forward in getting closer to a fuller picture of our evolutionary transformation.

“Go To The Ant”

A successful team is a group of many hands and one mind.

The human brain shrank in size about 3,000 years ago. Scientists may have found an explanation by studying ants.

Scientists may have found an explanation for the surprising decrease in human brain size about 3,000 years ago by studying ants.

technologyandthefuture

Technology & The Future

scienceandnature

Science & Nature

Can Collective Intelligence Be the Reason Why Human Brains Are Shrinking?

In February 1943, Erwin Schrödinger, quantum physicist and Nobel laureate (sharing his prize with Paul Dirac and Werner Heisenberg), gave a series of lectures at Trinity College Dublin, which later turned into his book “What is life? ” This work has been highly influential for a generation of molecular biologists such as Francis Crick, one of the discoverers of DNA.

“What Is Life”?

Less known perhaps is the fact that during his whole life Schrödinger was an ardent reader of philosophy from the East and West. From the 1950s on, when Schrödinger ceased to activelywork on the physics of his time, he focused more on wider philosophical and ethical issues related to science. Back then, his conferences always ended with what he jokingly called the “second Schrödinger equation”: “Atman = Brahman”, the Indian doctrine of identity .

Atman Is Brahman

In 1925, just a few months before Schrödinger discovered the most basic equation of quantum mechanics, he wrote down the first sketches of the ideas that he would later develop more thoroughly in “Mind and Matter”. Already then, his thoughts on technical matters were inspired by what he took to be greater metaphysical (religious) questions. Early on, Schrödinger expressed the conviction that metaphysics does not come after physics, but inevitably precedes it. Metaphysics is not a deductive affair but a speculative one.

“Mind And Matter”

One such speculative assumption (which can neither be proven nor disproven) is the one that there exists an external (mind-independent) world. Another one is the assumption that there exist separate minds. For both claims, we cannot get any empirical evidence: how could we step out of our own experience to check them? But both create insurmountable problems. The first creates the problem of how to think about the relation between these two types of realities (mind-matter). Why does it appear (according to our best science) that we live in a purely physical world devoid of qualities?

The Mind-Matter Problem

The second speculative assumption creates the problem of how to think about the relation between different minds (mind-mind). Why and how are we different from each other? Schrödinger believed that there is an elegant way to dissolve both of these problems by starting with an alternative metaphysical assumption. He did not endorse traditional Western views that go under the names of reductive materialism and subjective idealism, but he found inspiration in non-Western, particularly Indian philosophies.

The Mind-Mind Problem

The “second Schrödinger equation” refers to an old staple of Indian philosophy according to which the self (“Atman”) is identical to the ultimate reality of the universe (“Brahman”), which forms a central part of the teachings of the Advaita Vedânta. Schrödinger was quick to add that this “self” must not be conflated with the individual self but rather refers to a cosmic, universal entity of which individual selves are mere aspects.

Schrödinger’s “Second Equation”

A metaphor that Schrödinger liked to invoke to illustrate this idea is the one of a crystal that creates a multitude of colors (individual selves) by refracting light (the cosmic self that is equal to the essence of the universe). We are all but aspects of one single mind that forms the essence of reality. He also referred to this as the doctrine of identity. Accordingly, a non-dual form of consciousness, which must not be conflated with any of its single aspects, grounds the refutation of the (merely apparent) distinction into separate selves that inhabit a single world.

The Spectrum Metaphor Of The One Mind

Schrödinger drew remarkable consequences from this. For example, he believed that any man is the same as any other man that lived before him. In his early essay “Seek for the Road”, he writes about looking into the mountains before him. Thousands of years ago, other men similarly enjoyed this view. But why should one assume that oneself is distinct from these previous men? Is there any scientific fact that could distinguish your experience from another man’s? What makes you you and not someone else?

There Aren’t Separate Selves That Inhabit A Single World 

Similarly, as John Wheeler once assumed that there is really only one electron in the universe, Schrödinger assumed that there really is only one mind. Schrödinger thought this is supported by “the empirical fact that consciousness is never experienced in the plural, only in the singular. Not only has none of us ever experienced more than one consciousness, but there is also no trace of circumstantial evidence of this ever happening anywhere in the world.”

There Really Is One Mind

In the contemporary scientific study of consciousness, many scholars try to circumvent the question of how and why matter gives rise to conscious experience by asking why there seems to be a hard problem in the first place (when there is in fact none): consciousness is an illusionary story that some physical systems equipped with brains tell themselves. While Schrödinger was far from accepting an illusionary stance about the reality of consciousness, in a very similar vein he asks why it seems as if there were a multiplicity of minds, where there is just one mind (the “Atman=Brahman”).

There Only *Seems* To Be A Multiplicity Of Minds. Why?

The existence of many separate minds is an illusionary story that confused individuals would tell themselves. Thinking otherwise leads to the false belief that we are in some sense fundamentally isolated, rather than realizing that we are always connected with other beings (and ultimately also with what we now call non-living matter). Unlike in the hard problem case, there is no empirical evidence to suggest our initial belief is real.

We Only *Seem* To Be Fundamentally Isolated. Why?

An important characteristic of the way Schrödinger approached metaphysical and philosophical teachings was his prudence to uphold a rational and scientific methodology. The “doctrine of identity” cannot be adopted uncritically. We need to incorporate the doctrine into our best science, not throw our best science overboard. In other words, we should adopt a new metaphysics but keep with the scientific method.

Adopt Metaphysics While Keeping With The Scientific Method

Our scientific theories need “a bit of blood transfusion from Eastern thought … [but] transfusions always need great precaution to prevent clotting. We do not wish to lose the logical precision that our scientific thought has reached, and that is unparalleled anywhere at any epoch.”

What Schrödinger sought, what he would have appreciated the most, is a scientific approach to studying consciousness with mathematical precision. An important constraint following from the doctrine of identity for any such theory of consciousness would be that it, in its very basic structure, acknowledges that individual conscious beings are (i) aspects of a higher, unifying agent (rather than being disconnected individuals), and (ii) that the entire collection of such beings constitutes the ultimate nature of reality (rather than being just one among many things-electrons, rocks, or brains.)

Aspects And Constituents

Schrödinger desired a radically monist-theory that acknowledges the reality of consciousness. Given the current theoretical landscape in the study of consciousness, the “theory of conscious agents” seems to fit best with these requirements. It aims for a precise, crisp formulation of what consciousness does, and it proposes that any combination of two or more conscious agents is itself another agent.

The Theory Of Conscious Agents

The theory also seems to be compatible with the idea that the entire collection of agents constitutes the nature of reality, though this requires the theory to come up with a model of how the physical world can arise (and be nothing apart) from this collection.How could this be so? Schrödinger relied on a couple of arguments that have been raised previously in philosophy (e.g. by Kant) but his position boils down to this: what we call the physical world is the result of a process that Schrödinger called “objectivation”, i.e. the transformation of the one self-world (Atman=Brahman).

The Physical World And The One-Self World

Objectivation’s result is something that can be readily conceptualized and objectively studied, hence something that is fully void of subjective qualities. In the theory of conscious agents this amounts to the creation of “interfaces”. Such interfaces simplify what is going on in order to allow you to act efficiently. Good interfaces hide complexity. They do not let you see reality as it is but only as it is useful to you. What you call the “physical world” is merely a highly-simplified representation of non-dual consciousness.

Objectivation And Interfaces

This physical world also appears to harbor a multitude of subjects directed at it. It is the very same process of objectivation, which led to the false impression of an autonomous physical world, that also leads to the fallacy of assuming different forms of consciousness inhabiting different bodies. The quick fix of adding mental properties to a non-mental world would not be able to really solve the problems mentioned earlier. Do we need to label them with a tag saying “individual x”? But then, why are you you and not someone else? How to combine one set of subjects into a higher one?

The False Impression Of An Autonomous “Physical World”

But those problems can be circumvented by never giving in to the metaphysical assumption of the existence of one physical world that is opposed to many separated selves in the first place. According to the theory of conscious agents, the idea of fundamentally separated selves is a useful fiction that arises only if we conflate what we see on the interface with the true reality of non-dual consciousness.

The Idea Of Separate Selves Is (A Useful) Fiction

The theory of conscious agents proposes an interesting answer to Schrödinger’s questions. Why does it appear that we are living in a physical world without qualities? Why and how are we different from each other? Because the dynamics of conscious agents results in the creation of interfaces that hide the true character of reality. We are the same, yet we can appear as different.

Good Interfaces Hide And Simplify

From one perspective all agents combine into a single one which equals a (single) world. From a different perspective, this single agent is equal to a network of distinct agents that all inhabit their own worlds. Which perspective we choose, depends on what we want to explain.

Perspective Is Everything

Although I think that life may be the result of an accident, I do not think that of consciousness.

The task is not to see what has never been seen before, but to think what has never been thought before about what you see everyday.

“The total number of minds in the universe is one.”
— Erwin Schrödinger

Most assume that matter is fundamental, and that consciousness arises out of the complexity of matter. But Nobel Prize winning quantum physicist Erwin Schrödinger does not share that assumption. For him, the universe contains a single mind, writes Robert Prentner and Donald D. Hoffman.

philosophy

Philosophy

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

Schrödinger And The Conscious Universe

Imagine growing up without words. You live in a typical industrialized household, but you are somehow unable to learn the language of your parents. That means that you do not have access to education; you cannot properly communicate with your family other than through a set of idiosyncratic gestures; you never get properly exposed to abstract ideas such as “justice” or “global warming.” All you know comes from direct experience with the world.

What Lack Of Language Practically Means

It might seem that this scenario is purely hypothetical. There aren’t any cases of language deprivation in modern industrialized societies, right? It turns out there are. Many deaf children born into hearing families face exactly this issue. They cannot hear and, as a result, do not have access to their linguistic environment. Unless the parents learn sign language, the child’s language access will be delayed and, in some cases, missing completely.

Lack Of Language Is Not A Scenario. It’s Some People’s Reality. 

Does our mind develop normally under such circumstances? Of course not. Language enables us to receive vast amounts of information we would have never acquired otherwise. The details of your parents’ wedding. The Declaration of Independence. The entrée section of the dinner menu. The entire richness of human experience condensed into a linear sequence of words. Take language away, and the amount of information you can acquire decreases dramatically.

Language And The Mind

The lack of language affects even functions that do not seem to be intrinsically “linguistic,” such as math. Developmental research shows that keeping track of exact numbers above four requires knowing the words for these numbers. Imagine trying to tell the difference between seven apples and eight apples. The task becomes almost impossible if you can’t count them—and you can’t count them if you never learn that “seven” is followed by “eight.” As a result of this language-number interdependency, many deaf children fall behind in math, precisely because they did not learn to count early on.

Language And Number Interdepedency

Another part of your mind that needs language to develop properly is social cognition. Think about your interactions with your family and friends. Why is your mom upset? Why did your friend go inside the house just now? Understanding social situations requires inferring what the people around you are thinking.

Language And Social Cognition

Ludwig Wittgenstein claimed that “the limits of my language mean the limits of my world”; So far, the evidence does suggest that the limits of our language mean the limits of our world. However, what happens if language disappears once the mind is fully developed? Will we then lose the ability to use math and understand others?

What If Language Is There And Then It Disappears? 

Imagine you are a typical adult; let’s say you’re 40. You wake up one day, and suddenly, you realize that your language is gone. You look around the room, but no words come to mind to describe the objects you see. You’re starting to plan out your day, but no half-formed phrases rush through your mind. You unlock your smartphone, but, instead of text, you see a sea of squiggles. Desperate, you cry out for help, and someone rushes up to you—but, instead of speech, all you hear is meaningless murmur.

Nightmare Scenario: You Wake Up And Your Language Is Gone

The condition described above is known as global aphasia. It arises from severe damage to the brain, often as a result of a massive stroke. While some aphasias are temporary, in some cases the damage is irreparable, and the person may lose language for life. In your case, let’s say that a dozen doctors examined you and said (or, you think they said) that nothing can be done. If the limits of your language mean the limits of your world, should you conclude that the way you experience the world is now fundamentally limited? Do you even have a mind?

Again, Not A Scenario. It’s A Reality, Called Global Aphasia. 

Research on adult individuals with aphasia has demonstrated that math, theory of mind, and many other cognitive abilities are independent from language. Patients with severe language impairments perform comparably to the rest of us when asked to complete arithmetic tasks, reason about people’s intentions, determine physical causes of actions, or decide whether a drawing depicts a real-life event. Some of them play chess in their spare time. Some even engage in creative tasks. Soviet composer Vissarion Shebalin continued to write music even after a stroke that left him severely aphasic.

Loss Of Language Doesn’t Equal Loss Of Mind

In recent years, neuroscientists have isolated a network of brain regions (typically in the left hemisphere) that react almost exclusively to linguistic input. They respond to written sentences, spoken narratives, words, monologues, conversations, but will not activate in response to memory tasks, spatial reasoning, music, math, or social situations that do not involve dialogue. No wonder many patients with aphasia do not have impairments in other cognitive domains—language and other functions are housed in separate chunks of brain matter.

Language Is Separate From The Rest Of Cognition

Many great thinkers have drawn a strong connection between language and the mind. Oscar Wilde called language “the parent, and not the child, of thought”; Ludwig Wittgenstein claimed that “the limits of my language mean the limits of my world”; and Bertrand Russell stated that the role of language is “to make possible thoughts which could not exist without it.”

Language And The Mind - The Writers’ Perspective

Not all writers support Wittgenstein’s and Russell’s idea that language and thought are inseparable. Tom Lubbock, a British writer and illustrator whose language system gradually deteriorated because of a brain tumor, wrote in his memoir shortly before his death in 2011:““My language to describe things in the world is very small, limited. My thoughts when I look at the world are vast, limitless and normal, same as they ever were. My experience of the world is not made less by lack of language but is essentially unchanged.”

Language And The Mind - A Language-less Writer’s Perspective

So, what can we say about the role language plays in shaping our minds? Well, pick a mind that is still developing, and you will find that removing language will alter it for life. However, pick a mind that is fully formed and take all words away, and you will discover that the rest of cognition remains mostly intact. Our language is but a scaffold for our minds: indispensable during construction but not necessary for the building to remain in place.

Once We Acquire Language, We Can Live Without It

Language is the dress of thought.

Language is what makes us human, what lies at the root of our awareness, our intellect, our sense of self. Without it, we cannot plan, cannot communicate, cannot think. Or can we?

Once we acquire language, we can live without it.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

mindfulness

Mindfulness

communication

Communication

Language Is the Scaffold of the Mind

The BioSentinel mission was selected as one of the secondary payloads, to fly on the first launch of the Space Launch System rocket for the Artemis I missionThe primary objective of BioSentinel is to develop a biosensor instrument to detect and measure the impact of space radiation on living organisms over long durations beyond low-Earth Orbit (LEO).

Introduction

BioSentinel will address strategic knowledge gaps related to the biological effects of space radiation, and will provide an adaptable platform to perform human- relevant measurements in multiple space environments in the future. The BioSentinel biosensor utilizes the budding yeast to query the biological response to ambient deep space radiation, including DNA damageGrowth and metabolic activity of the yeast cells will be measured using a 3-color LED detection system and the metabolic indicator.

Science Goals Of Mission

Yeast is the ideal organism for this mission because of its spaceflight heritage, well-characterized genetic tools, and its capacity to survive long period space radiation. Most Importantly, yeast’s DNA damage repair processes are highly similar to that of humans. The biosensor contains two genetically engineered yeast strains: a wild type strain that serves as a control for yeast health and “normal” DNA damage repair, and a rad51 deletion strain, which is defective for DNA damage repair.

Why Yeast?? 

The BioSentinel mission is funded by the Advanced Exploration Systems program within the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters.Partner organizations include NASA Ames Research Center for the development of BioSentinel, and NASA Johnson Space Center for the LET spectrometer.

Partners & Funding

A biology experiment on a small, deep-space satellite will study radiation exposure to help NASA prepare to send humans farther than they’ve ever gone before.

space

Space

What is BioSentinel?

The Starship can be thought as 2 distinct parts, and both of them are reusable<ul><li>The SuperHeavy Booster</li><li>The Starship</li></ul>

The Rocket Itself

It is the first stage of the Starship system, It's task is to make the Starship reach the upper atmosphere, Since it is reusable, it lands back to the surface on a pre decided spot safely, and can be reused again

The SuperHeavy Booster 

It consists of everything required for a Mars travel (6-9 months) Inside it will have all amenities, living space, kitchens, gym, experiments area, observation floor, many things in the upper halfIn the mid section will be a bit of cargo, although most cargo will go by individual starshipsLower half will have the fuel tanks, engines, Landing legs and all necessary for an Incredible Journey The Starship half vertically will have heat shields, to safely reenter Mars atmosphere

The Starship

Its a long procedure, Inshort it is...<ol><li>SuperHeavy and starship are at the launchpad, SuperHeavy lifts off, goes to the upper atmosphere</li><li>SuperHeavy decouples and starships engines fire, to achieve a stable orbit around earth, Meanwhile SuperHeavy lands back on earth</li><li>Now starship is in orbit, but Out of fuel, so another starship launches with only fuel, by the same SuperHeavy</li><li>It docks with the main starship in orbit and transfers all the fuel to fill its tank, and events back to earth</li><li>The Starship now fires it's engines for a trajectory to Mars, Now we just sit down and wait for 6 7 months</li></ol>

The Launch

The landing procedure from when we touch the atmosphere of a planet to touchdown is called 7 minutes of terror<ul><li>The engines fire before reaching Mars, to slow down the rocket a bit</li><li>We enter Mars atmosphere, ReEntry begins to heat our spaceship, now the Heat shield side is facing it</li><li>We survive ReEntry, and are flying above Mars, thanks to its wings</li><li>We backfire engines, and cancel the horizontal velocity, so now we are falling straight down</li><li>When near to the surface, the landing gears deploy, Engines fire, and we slowly touchdown</li><li>We finally landed on Mars :)</li></ul>

7 Minutes Of Terror

How does the SpaceX Starship work, from structure to landing, Here it is...

How the SpaceX Starship works

Every day, people drink more than two billion coffee cups worldwide, and experts predict that demand for it could triple by mid-century.Coffee consumption is highest in Europe and North America. In the US, 66 percent of adults drink coffee every day — more than any other beverage, including water — and in the UK, coffee is now officially as popular as tea.But it’s the Netherlands and Nordic nations who routinely top the charts for the most-caffeinated crowd, with the Dutch, Finns and Swedes consuming 8.3 kg (18.3 lb), 7.8 kg (17.2 lb) and 7.6 kg (16.8 lb) coffee per person in 2020.

Coffee, The Love Of Our Lives

Study after study shows that our thirst for coffee harms the planet and exploits millions of people in some of the poorest parts of the world.Arabica, which originated in the highlands of Ethiopia, is prized for its smooth, complex flavour profile, and it fetches a higher price. It requires shade, so traditional coffee farms intersperse trees of different types and heights among the coffee plants. To grow well, it requires shade and requires chemical pesticides to grow in the sun, which inevitably end up in local waterways.

How Coffee Production Hurts the Environment 

<ul><li>Around 125 million people worldwide depend on coffee for their livelihoods, but many of the estimated 25 million smallholder farmers who produce 80% of the crop struggle to earn a reliable living.</li><li>Farmers' struggles are compounded by the fact that coffee is a boom-and-bust commodity, vulnerable to poor weather and pests.</li><li>This creates an unstable market with recurring supply-demand imbalances that drive wild fluctuations in price.</li></ul>

The High Human Costs of Producing Coffee

Buy certified coffee: Coffee certifications can help you find coffee produced using farming practices that meet environmental, social or economic sustainability standards. There’s a dizzying array to choose from, but some of the best-regarded certifications are Fairtrade, Alliance, 4C and Smithsonian Bird Friendly.Each scheme prioritizes different aspects of sustainability — and their focus can shift — so be sure to stay up to date and pick one that aligns with your values.

Be A Responsible Coffee Drinker

Dig deeper, beyond just the certification labels. Initiatives such as <a href="https://www.transparency.coffee/">The Pledge</a> aim to improve farmers’ bottom line by encouraging roasters to be transparent about the prices they pay. Many independent coffee shops also have close relationships with their growers and roasters, so don’t be shy to ask questions directly.

Know Your Coffee

Dairy production is second only to meat in terms of its climate impacts, so it’s worth considering the entire contents of your cup. Studies show that the greenhouse gas emissions associated with a standard latte are between two and four times as high as those from a standard espresso.If you can’t forego the milk, you can slash its climate impact by two-thirds by picking one of a variety of plant-based options.

Consider Your Milk

As much as 70 percent of your cup’s environmental impact is tied to the beans and how they’re cultivated, so it makes sense to focus most of your attention there. But small actions add up, so avoid non-recyclable coffee pods and bulky pre-made drinks that take an inordinate amount of fuel to ship.Finally, don’t underestimate the power of a simple reusable cup. When you take yours into a café, you’re doing more than saving a disposable cup from the landfill — you’re also signalling your values to companies that want your business.

Do Some Legwork

Every day, more than two billion cups of coffee are consumed worldwide -- wow! Unsurprisingly, that staggering consumption comes with significant environmental and human costs. Learn what they are and four ways to drink more sustainably.

food

Food

health

Health

Wonder about the impact of your daily cup of coffee on the planet? Here’s the bitter truth

The summer of 2022 is shaping up to be a very warm one. The heat wave is expected to intensify in the next few months, with above-normal temperatures likely across the lower 48 states.<ul><li>Heat waves begin when high pressure in the atmosphere moves in and pushes warm air toward the ground.</li><li>The air warms up further as it is compressed, and we begin to feel a lot hotter.</li><li>A heat wave parks itself over an area for several days or longer.</li></ul>

The Heat Waves: A Primer

As the ground warms, it loses moisture, which makes it easier to heat even more.In the drought-ridden West, there is often plenty of heat for the high-pressure system to trap.The trapped heat continues to warm, the system acts like a lid on a pot - earning the name "heat dome"Last summer in the West, high pressure trapped heat led to triple-digit temperatures that killed hundreds.

Heat Domes

We have long known that the world has warmed by more than 1 degree Celsius (about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) since 1900, and that the pace of warming has accelerated in recent decades.Staying Safe<ul><li>Give yourself time to acclimate</li><li>Increase the amount of time you spend outdoors gradually, if you can, by about 20 percent</li><li>Know the signs of heat exhaustion and heatstroke</li><li>Hydrate and drink water</li><li>Don’t push yourself past comfort</li></ul>

Hotter Than Normal

To help reduce demand, consider raising the thermostat by a few degrees and closing window shades and blinds.Avoid using large appliances like ovens, washing machines and dryers during the hottest part of the day, and turn off all lights and electronic devices not in use.

Power Outages

In most parts of the United States, temperatures must be above the historical average in an area for two or more days before the label “heat wave” is applied.

What to Know About Heat Waves

“One way solar could soon become more widely used would be to integrate solar panels onto a wider array of commonplace materials and technologies without inconveniencing the ways we currently use those things today. “Even though <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2020/06/23/two-thirds-of-americans-think-government-should-do-more-on-climate/">over two-thirds</a> of Americans feel the government should do more to protect against climate change, most are unwilling - sometimes defiant - to change their collective energy routines drastically due to inconvenience. Some rooted in practical issues (i.e - not enough EV power stations, bad locations for alternative energies, general power supplies), others…not so much.

Powered by Convenience

If achieved, energy harvesting devices could be discreetly placed on top of windows, display screens, or even human skin

Researching New Materials To Integrate Solar Energy

However, a team of researchers in Japan have now made promising <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-15352-x">steps toward solving this transparency issue</a> The process is based on a conductive material called Indium Tin Oxide (ITO), which is both transparent and colorless.ITO is one of the most widely used <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indium_tin_oxide">transparent conducting oxides</a> because of its electrical conductivity and optical transparency, the ease with which it can be deposited as a thin film, and its chemical resistance to moisture.(Completely unrelated and 99.9% different, but this reminds me of <a href="https://www.tssbulletproof.com/blog/optically-clear-aluminum-provides-bulletproof-protection-2/">newer bulletproof glass technologies</a>. The .1% being that they’re both clear.)

Transparency Materials Still Less Than 70% Clear

With their manufacturing approach, Kato’s team made the device over 1,000 times more effective at converting incoming light into electrical energy than existing ITO-based solar cells.The team’s choice of materials was far more transparent than previous designs: allowing some 79% of incoming light to pass straight through.

Efficiency and Transparency

If the material becomes more commercially viable in the future, Kato’s team believes it could one day be integrated into phones and other everyday electronics. (for now, I guess I’ll just have to make do with one of these useful <a href="https://www.outdoorgearlab.com/topics/camping-and-hiking/best-solar-charger">portable solar chargers</a> 🤷‍♂️…🙃)

This Conversation Brought To You by…THE SUN!!

Tech got us here, tech can *help* get us out…

A new solar panel design can efficiently convert light into electricity, while still allowing almost 80% of incoming light to pass through.

Transparent solar panels could soon turn windows into energy harvesters

This filter-feeding shark moves through its habitat eating krill, plankton, jelly fish, shrimp, and copepods. Yet most plankton is found near the surface, so it is something of a mystery how Megamouth manages to find enough to eat.

What does the Megamouth shark eat?

Deep Sea: Megamouth Shark

The nervous system of the starfish is very simple...there is no brain and there are not even any ganglia to coordinate movement. The nervous system is characterized by a nerve ring that surrounds the mouth. A radial nerve branches off of the nerve ring and extends to each arm.

Do starfish have a brain?

Neuroscience for Kids - Invertebrate Nervous System

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