monad

Though perhaps counter-intuitive but bridging nonetheless the great chasm between the microscopic and macroscopic, Oxford researcher and doctoral candidate David Nadlinger was awarded a national science photography prize, as Twisted Sifter reports, for capturing a pale point of light in a laboratory apparatus, captioned “Single Atom in an Ion Trap.” For scale, the distance between the electrodes there in the centre is two millimetres. Laser illumination and the particular chemical properties of the element strontium and a bit of patience set up conditions where the lone atom could be photographed with a normal camera set to a long exposure. Read more about how this picture was possible and about the applications of studying the behaviour of free-floating atoms at the links above.

contamination hazard urban disposal

To commemorate and publicise the Museum of London’s acquisition and exposition of a small piece of the infamous one hundred and forty tonne Whitechapel Fatberg, the curators commissioned a series of short, low-budget horror movies starring the congealed blockage found in the sewers of East London in September of 2017.
The remarkable and durable engineering and infrastructure of the Victorian-era has allowed people to grow oblivious about plumbing and waste in general—that is, until the systems that have proven reliable become over-burdened, and the exhibit hopes to persuade visitors otherwise and to think about the consequences of what gets flushed away. Deposits such as these can be structurally as tough as concrete, requiring specialists to remove them, but the bulk of the Whitechapel mass was successfully recovered and converted into a biofuel.

les aveux de la chair

Prompted by the culture shift that is soundly rejecting the objectification and diminishment of women in order to boost chauvinistic urges and insecurities, the literary executors of the estate of Michel Foucault will publish the unfinished fourth volume (translated “Confessions of the Flesh”) of The History of Sexuality which addresses the topical subjects of power and consent over four decades after the release of the first instalment. Suffering from complications of AIDS, Foucault worked on the subsequent volumes in the early 1980s at an accelerated pace and was able to comprehensively address the totem and taboo of human sexuality through the lens of relativism and repression, questioning why contemporary culture asserts a level of sophistication and maturity over the past that modernity can’t honestly claim until or unless it comes to terms with the constructs we’ve created to manage people and population.

arboriculture

Writing for the Guardian, former environment editor John Vidal extols the very welcome global shift in attitude towards the practical and effective campaign to reforest areas previously cleared of trees. Beforehand we’ve mentioned efforts underway in England and Iceland to bring back the woodlands for their own sake but we failed to recognise how pervasive the movement is and the ulterior incentives, which include mitigating climate change and soil erosion and cites some success stories fostered by intensive planting of trees.