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That’s the Canadian River in the Texas Panhandle. The lovely photo is by Sean Fitzgerald from this story. The theme of this issue of Texas Highways is rivers — and more generally water in Texas. It’s something that concerns me profoundly. I have an essay on water and the West coming out in Raritan soon — I’ll link to it when it appears.
Review by Tina Koyama
I always say (to myself and others) that I’m not a sheeny, shiny, glittery gal (I’ve only ever purchased one bottle of shimmery ink, and I gave it away soon after). Obviously a liar, I recently found myself craving some sheeny, shiny, glittery watercolors. The Boku-Undo Gansai Watercolor Palette in the Aurora colors (6/$14.75) looked mouth-watering.
Before I plant my face into the sheen, I thought I’d mention that I’m already a fan of the Boku-Undo mini palettes of unique watercolors. The E-Sumi palette I reviewed a few years ago are a lot of fun to use when I’m in a dark mood. While the e-sumi palette is subdued, the Aurora set is on the opposite end of the scale: It’s all about the dazzling light.
The set includes (from left) gold, silver, red, green, blue and purple. I used both my scanner and my phone to photograph swatches in direct daylight on black and white papers. Each time, the swatches look very different!
On white paper, the shimmer is apparent in direct light, but the hues are difficult to differentiate and even seem to change. I’m not sure they are worth using on white paper.
On dark paper, however, the effect is entirely different. The sparkly, metallic particles glow on black paper. I rubbed a finger across the dried swatches, and some sparkly flecks smeared a bit like powder.
It was obvious that I had to make a test sketch on black paper, so I used a black Stillman & Birn Nova sketchbook. And I had just the right reference photo to use! During the summer months when the sun doesn’t go down until 8 or 9 p.m., my spouse guy and I take after-dinner walks through the neighborhood to enjoy the light. The gorgeous “golden hour” is too brief to sketch on location, so I snap a lot of reference photos to sketch from later (like the long, dismal winters when the sun goes down at 4). The photo I used wasn’t as dark as my sketch appears, but the low, warm light gave everything a lovely glow.
Whatever gives these paints their sparkle also makes them thicker than typical watercolors. I applied them fairly thick to retain as much concentrated shimmer as possible, and they felt a bit creamy rather than watery.
Oooh, these paints are fun on black paper! I have fully embraced my inner glitter gal.
Tina Koyama is an urban sketcher in Seattle. Her blog is Fueled by Clouds & Coffee, and you can follow her on Instagram as Miatagrrl.
The post Watercolor Review: Boku-Undo Gansai Aurora Palette appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.
Researchers report that water on Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons, holds phosphates.
The team used data from NASA’s Cassini space mission to detect evidence of phosphates in particles ejected from the moon’s ice-covered global ocean.
Phosphorus, in the form of phosphates, is vital for all life on Earth. It forms the backbone of DNA and is part of cell membranes and bones. The new study in Nature is the first to report direct evidence of phosphorus on an extraterrestrial ocean world.
The team found that phosphate is present in Enceladus’ ocean at levels at least 100 times higher—and perhaps 1,000 times higher—than in Earth’s oceans.
“By determining such high phosphate concentrations readily available in Enceladus’ ocean, we have now satisfied what is generally considered one of the strictest requirements in establishing whether celestial bodies are habitable,” says third author Fabian Klenner, a postdoctoral researcher in Earth and space sciences at the University of Washington.
“This is the first finding of phosphorus on an extraterrestrial ocean world.”
While at Freie Universität Berlin, Klenner did experiments that revealed the high phosphate concentrations present in Enceladus’ ocean.
One of the most profound discoveries in planetary science over the past 25 years is that worlds with oceans beneath a surface layer of ice are common in our solar system. These ice-covered celestial bodies include the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn—including Ganymede, Titan, and Enceladus—as well as even more distant celestial bodies, like Pluto.
NASA’s Cassini mission explored Saturn, its rings and its moons from 2004 to 2017. It first discovered that Enceladus’ harbors an ice-covered watery ocean, and analyzed material that erupted through cracks in the region of the moon’s south pole.
The spacecraft was equipped with the Cosmic Dust Analyzer that analyzed individual ice grains emitted from Enceladus and sent those measurements back to Earth. To determine the chemical composition of the grains, Klenner used a specialized setup in Berlin that mimicked the data generated by an ice grain hitting the instrument. He tried different chemical compositions and concentrations for his samples to try to match the unknown signatures in the spacecraft’s observations.
“I prepared different phosphate solutions, and did the measurements, and we hit the bullseye. This was in perfect match with the data from space,” Klenner says. “This is the first finding of phosphorus on an extraterrestrial ocean world.”
Planets with surface oceans, like Earth, must reside within a narrow range of distances from their host stars (in what is known as the “habitable zone“) to maintain temperatures at which water neither evaporates nor freezes. Worlds with an interior ocean like Enceladus, however, can occur over a much wider range of distances, greatly expanding the number of habitable worlds likely to exist across the galaxy.
In previous studies, the team at the Freie Universität Berlin determined that Enceladus harbors a “soda ocean,” rich in dissolved carbonates, that also contains a vast variety of reactive and sometimes complex carbon-containing compounds. The team also found indications of hydrothermal environments on the seafloor.
The new study now shows the unmistakable signatures of dissolved phosphates.
“Previous geochemical models were divided on the question of whether Enceladus’ ocean contains significant quantities of phosphates at all,” says lead author Frank Postberg at Freie Universität Berlin. “These measurements leave no doubt that substantial quantities of this essential substance are present in the ocean water.”
To investigate how the ocean on Enceladus can maintain such high concentrations of phosphate, geochemical lab experiments and modeling included in the new paper were conducted by a Japan-based team led by second author Yasuhito Sekine at the Tokyo Institute of Technology and a US-based team led by fourth author Christopher Glein at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas.
Source: University of Washington
The post Saturn’s moon harbors phosphates, a ‘building block of life’ appeared first on Futurity.
Marie Widengård looks to critical border studies to understand how both extraction and conservation are at work in a contested area of Jamaica.
The post Saving the Forest to Secure the Mine in Jamaica’s Cockpit Country appeared first on Edge Effects.
"The book is about the importance of film for enabling audiences to connect to the most remote environment on the planet."
The post Filming the Deep: Margaret Cohen on Underwater Film Technologies appeared first on Public Books.
Guest post by Niloufer Siddiqui and Erum Haider
In 2021, in the midst of national political turmoil resulting from increasingly polarized politics, by-elections in the Pakistani mega-city of Karachi were being tightly contested over a seemingly mundane issue: access to water.
That water should become an election issue was perhaps not surprising. Karachi “faces an absolute scarcity of water,” with experts estimating that demand for water exceeds supply by twice as much. Most of Karachi’s residential areas are connected through pipes managed by the state-run Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB); however, given vastly inadequate supply, some of these physical connections only provide water once or twice a month. Problems are compounded in Karachi’s many low-income, informal settlements, which have little established infrastructure for water supply. Households in these neighborhoods often rely on low-quality water sold at exorbitant rates by private water vendors.
Water in Karachi involves a large number of actors with complex, often bewildering links to one another. In addition to the state-run KWSB, public benefit corporations direct water at certain neighborhoods at the expense of others. Sometimes the paramilitary Rangers step in by operating tankers. Licensed private water companies also provide water at a cost. All of these providers operate legally, but there is also a shadowy water mafia in Karachi that illegally siphons off water from the main supply and uses it to fill its own fleet of tankers and operate its own hydrants. The mafia sells this water to rich and poor consumers alike—anyone willing, or desperate enough, to pay for it.
In interviews conducted in July 2021, we were told that control over water from the city’s depleting freshwater sources has become one of the most lucrative arenas in a mega-city already saturated with criminality and political violence. The people we spoke with reaffirmed what others have found: that the water mafia operates often with explicit links to and assistance from political figures and representatives of the state. And because ethnicity remains central to how political and social life in Karachi is organized, many Karachi citizens believe that ethnic links are critical to how water is directed and prioritized.
That access to a commodity as vital as water should be determined by political ties and who can pay is not unique to Karachi. Where state capacity is weak, the provision of goods and services is often taken over by non-state actors, including criminal and illegal organizations. Scholars, journalists, and activists have chronicled this phenomenon in contexts ranging from Medellin to Baghdad to New York City. These often illicit actors step in to provide security in the presence of a weak state, but also provide citizens with essential public goods—at a price.
In December 2021 and January 2022, together with the Pakistan Institute of Public Opinion (an affiliate of Gallup International in Pakistan), we surveyed 2,000 people in Karachi to understand how voters in this ethnically-polarized city evaluate political candidates based on the candidates’ ethnicity and their claimed links to water resources.
We found that, while a majority of respondents preferred candidates who share their ethnicity, ties to the water mafia seem to do little to increase the appeal of even a co-ethnic candidate. Indeed, co-ethnic candidates with mafia linkages are seen as significantly less credible and helpful than those with state water linkages. Most people preferred candidates who share their ethnicity, especially when they have links to state water resources.
These results surprised us. It is often assumed that politicians use connections to the water mafia to direct water to their political constituencies as a vote-getting strategy. What we found, however, is that voters appear skeptical that politicians’ connections to the water mafia will directly benefit them, and so those connections do little to boost votes.
For politicians, manipulating the source of water is a profitable business opportunity. “Water provision ‘is more lucrative than drugs’” and, as one former National Assembly member told us, selling public water to tankers is “the easiest racket in town.” Rather than benefitting voters, water access is used by politicians to “fill their [own] swimming pools, water their lush lawns, bestow on friends, or indulge in their own tanker business on the side.” It is also used to curry favor with groups other than voters. Where water mafia connections do result in patronage, it appears to be primarily targeted towards political workers linked to the party apparatus rather than ordinary citizens.
There are many examples around the world where criminal gangs have been able to garner local support by stepping in where the state fails, providing health, education, and myriad other services. Think Hezbollah in Lebanon, gangs in Rio de Janeiro, and militant actors in Iraq. In Karachi, the water tanker mafia is perceived as contributing to, and emblematic of, overall state corruption. When respondents in our survey were asked who they believed was responsible for the water mafia in Karachi, about 53 percent blamed the provincial government and nearly 10 percent blamed the KWSB. In this context, then, it is likely that a politician with ties to water tanker networks would not be seen as an attractive candidate to alleviate the respondents’ water problems but rather seen as responsible for Karachi’s water crisis itself.
The case of the Karachi water mafia is emblematic of an increasingly common paradox in cities where weak governance and criminality plague the provision of basic services. On the one hand, rich and poor citizens alike are frustrated with illegal water provision, which many see as linked to corrupt practices within the state apparatus. On the other hand, illegal water services fill a gap created by inadequate state provision. Many individuals, particularly the poor in underserved neighborhoods, depend on these services. But just because they rely on illicit actors doesn’t imply that they are happy about it.
Niloufer Siddiqui is an Assistant Professor at the University at Albany-State University of New York. Erum Haider is an Assistant Professor at the College of Wooster.
This post is the first in a series on illicit economies, organized crime, and extra-legal actors and came out of an IGCC-sponsored conference hosted in October 2022 by the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy.
The authors acknowledge funding from the International Growth Centre in support of this project.
Beetles can survive their entire lives without drinking any liquid water whatsoever. Instead, they suck water from the air with their rear ends.
Insect pests eat their way through thousands of tons of food around the world every year. Food security in developing nations is particularly affected by animal species like the grain weevil and red flour beetle which have specialized in surviving in extremely dry environments, granaries included, for thousands of years.
For a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers investigated the molecular and physiological processes underlying how beetles stay hydrated.
Indeed, beetles can open their rectums and take up water from moist air and convert it into fluid, which they can then absorb into their bodies. This novel approach to consuming water has been known for more than a century within scientific circles around the world, but never fully clarified until now.
“We have shed new light on the molecular mechanisms that allow beetles to absorb water rectally. Insects are particularly sensitive to changes in their water balance. As such, this knowledge can be used to develop more targeted methods to combat beetle species which destroy our food production, without killing other animals or harming humans and nature,” says lead author Kenneth Veland Halberg, associate professor in the biology department at the University of Copenhagen.
The researchers studied the internal organs of red flour beetles to learn more about their ability to absorb water through the rectum. Red flour beetles are used as so-called model organisms, which means that they are offer tools that make them easy to work with and that their biology is similar to that found in other beetles.
Here, the researchers identified a gene that is expressed 60 times more in the beetle’s rectum compared to the rest of the animal, which is higher than any other gene they found. This led them to a unique group of cells known as leptophragmata cells. Upon closer inspection, they could see that these cells play a crucial role when the beetle absorbs water through its rear end.
“Leptophragmata cells are tiny cells situated like windows between the beetle’s kidneys and the insect circulatory system, or blood. As the beetle’s kidneys encircle its hindgut, the leptophragmata cells function by pumping salts into the kidneys so that they are able to harvest water from moist air through their rectums and from here into their bodies,” Veland Halberg says. “The gene we have discovered is essential to this process, which is new knowledge for us.”
Besides being able to suck water out of the air, beetles are also extremely effective at extracting liquid from food. Even dry grain, which may consist of 1-2% water, can contribute to a beetle’s fluid balance.
“A beetle can go through an entire life cycle without drinking liquid water. This is because of their modified rectum and closely applied kidneys, which together make a multi-organ system that is highly specialized in extracting water from the food that they eat and from the air around them. In fact, it happens so effectively that the stool samples we have examined were completely dry and without any trace of water,” Veland Halberg says.
Over the past 500 million years, beetles have successfully spread across the planet. Today, one in five animal species on Earth is a beetle. Unfortunately, they are also among the pests that have a devastating impact on our food security. The red flour beetle, grain weevil, confused flour beetle, Colorado potato beetle, and other types of beetles make their way into up to 25% of the global food supply every year.
We use approximately $100 billion in pesticides worldwide every year to keep insects out of our food. However, traditional pesticides harm other living organisms and destroy the environment.
Therefore, according to Veland Halberg, it is important to develop more specific and “eco-friendly” insecticides, which only targets insect pests while leaving more beneficial insects, such as bees, alone. This is where a new and better understanding of beetles’ anatomy and physiology could become key.
“Now we understand exactly which genes, cells, and molecules are at play in the beetle when it absorbs water in its rectum. This means that we suddenly have a grip on how to disrupt these very efficient processes by, for example, developing insecticides that target this function and in doing so, kill the beetle,” he says.
“There is twenty times as much insect biomass on Earth than that of humans. They play key roles in most food webs have a huge impact on virtually all ecosystems and on human health. So, we need to understand them better.”
Additional coauthors are from the University of Edinburgh and the University of Copenhagen.
Source: University of Copenhagen
The post How beetles use their butts to suck water from the air appeared first on Futurity.
Since 2018, historically Black Edward Waters University in Jacksonville, Florida, has more than doubled the number of degree programs offered to students. The university recently announced that by the end of this year, it will have introduced six new undergraduate degree offerings and two new graduate degrees.
The new bachelor’s degree programs are in forensic science, computer and information science, social work, accounting, public health, and sports management. The university will also be offering a master of public administration degree and a master’s degree in cybersecurity.
According to Donna H. Oliver, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Edward Waters University, these new academic offerings are not only progressive they are also distinctive and relevant in that they are strategically focused upon aligning student interest with business, industry, and community workforce needs. “Further, it is our goal to grow enrollments at EWU by providing an infrastructure for online programs and an extensive array of degree offerings while vigorously expanding professional development and leadership opportunities for our faculty and staff,” said Dr. Oliver.
“We are working to continuously demonstrate the efficacy of our programs through high student performance and success,” added Dr. Oliver. “The university is engaged in a continuous state of ongoing assessment of our faculty and instructional methods as we look for our new programs to distinguish themselves on a national scale.”
As spring inches ever closer I can’t stop thinking about and planning what I’ll be putting into the ground this year. London-based LSA International’s new Balcony and Terrazza collections also have me dreaming up what I’ll be adding to my empty planters – and maybe a few new ones. Inspired by biophilia – our affinity to engage with the natural world – Balcony and Terrazza’s designs are sculptural and purposeful. Their individually mouth-blown glass pieces add a sense of calm to their surroundings by echoing patterns found in the natural world.
Balcony is a two-part, self-watering glass planter that uses sub-irrigation to deliver water straight to a plant’s roots via a cotton cord that wicks water from the built-in reservoir to the soil. Inspired by visually interesting terraced landscapes and offset city balconies, Balcony maintains a consistent level of soil moisture – ideal for plants who don’t like to dry out before their next drink. The two clear and olive green glass sections neatly fit together and are suitable for plants, bulbs, and herbs.
Sticking with a staggered profile, Terrazza is a collection of floor and desk planters ready to help you add green life to your space. The two-part planter features a mouth-blown glass planting bowl that nestles into a powder-coated steel base. The resulting column mimics high-rise terraces and roof gardens, creating a shelf-like formation, while an open channel in the base provides the plant’s roots with exposure to sunlight. Terrazza is a great option for growing trailing plants, as well as bulbs and herbs.
To learn more about Balcony and Terrazza, visit lsa-international.com.
Enlarge / Part of the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston on Dec. 16, 2021. (credit: Getty | John Tlumacki)
Water purification systems installed in two ice machines in a Boston hospital were supposed to make the water taste and smell better for patients on a surgery floor—but it ended up killing three of them, an investigation found.
The purification systems inadvertently stripped chlorine from the municipal tap water, allowing bacteria normally found at low levels to flourish and form biofilms inside the machines. This led to infections in four vulnerable cardiac-surgery patients who had prolonged stays on the hospital floor. Three of them died of their infections.
Researchers detailed the case cluster and ensuing investigation in a study published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Review by Tina Koyama
Although I’m mostly a colored and graphite pencil sketcher, sometimes I get into a painty mood. If I haven’t used paints in a while, though, I get a bit overwhelmed by choosing and mixing colors; I just want to grab a brush and hit the page with it. That’s what I love about a watercolor set like the Kuretake Gansai Tambi Graphite Colors (palette of 6/$16.50). The neutral, near-black hues require no mixing to have fun with.
The set comes in a cardboard palette of six pans that are larger than traditional watercolor full pans (though a bit shallower). The color name (in English and Japanese) and color number appear on the underside of the pan, and the number also appears on the palette. I find the color name on the pan to be especially handy because the subtle, dark hues can be difficult to identify when dry. (Apparently, these paints are not available individually at JetPens.)
When swatched, the hues become more distinct. The lightfast colors recall the Boku-Undo E-Sumi Watercolor Palette that I reviewed a while back. While that set evokes the rich blackness of ink, the Kuretake set is more subtle and matte like graphite. (I love having both pen- and pencil-like watercolor sets!)
According to the JetPens product description, “the surface of the paint can be polished to reveal a metallic luster.” That statement piqued my curiosity, so I took a paper towel and rubbed the concentrated ends of my swatches. It was difficult to photograph to show the luster, but with light reflected directly, the paints do show a subtle, graphite-like sheen.
To make test sketches, I first used green and red to sketch a portrait (reference photo by Earthsworld).
Then I sketched my friend Skully (inspired by the X-Files character, of course) twice in a gray Stillman & Birn Nova sketchbook – once with blue and once with violet. (The white highlights were made with an East Hill Tombstone white brush pen that Ana and I both reviewed several years ago.)
I used a standard-size East Hill Kumadori water brush to make these sketches. With a finer brush (and a finer hand), I think these graphite-inspired paints would be lovely for calligraphy as well as painting.
DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were provided free of charge by JetPens for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.
Tina Koyama is an urban sketcher in Seattle. Her blog is Fueled by Clouds & Coffee, and you can follow her on Instagram as Miatagrrl.
The post Watercolor Review: Kuretake Gansai Tambi Palette Graphite Colors appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.
I’m a huge fan of old music from 30-50-s. In my channel I’ll post the music I listen to. If old tangos, foxtrots and other music from the era of Parker 51 and Waterman Ideal speak to you, you are welcome to join.
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| BENU Euphoria Forest Pond fountain pen, an online store exclusive. |
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| The Forest Pond fountain pen features hand-painted goldfish and white water lilies. |
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| BENU Euphoria fountain pens can be filled with ink using cartridges or converters. |
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| Euphoria fountain pens have the standard BENU stainless steel clip which adds gloss and shine to the pen. Note that the BENU logo in the hand-painted Euphoria pens is painted white. Logos in regular Euphoria pens are not painted. |
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| These are the hand-painted goldfish and white water lilies in the Forest Pond's barrel. The depth and color in these hand-painted details are amazing! |
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| BENU Euphoria fountain pens' long sections help a lot in writing comfortably. |
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| BENU has continuously used Schmidt nibs on their pens. I love that they are consistently smooth, wet, and trouble-free. They write so well out the box! For a while now, I have shifted to using Medium and Fine nibs from Broad and stubs. BENU's Fine nibs are smooth writers! |
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| Some of my BENU fountain pens. From top: Tattoo, Tessera, Euphoria, and Talisman. |
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| I'm a proud owner of three BENU Euphoria fountain pens. From top: Forest Pond, Scent of Irises (now sold out), and the 2021 Limited Edition Halloween Orange. |
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| From the top: TWSBI ECO-T Blue, Leonardo Momento Zero Positano Blue, BENU Euphoria Forest Pond, On A Whim Woodworks Peacock Springs, and Lamy Safari Blue. |
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| Uncapped, Euphoria is still the longest pen in this group. Note this pen's long section. |
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| The Fine Schmidt nib wrote smooth and wet out of the box. This pen is going to my pen case of daily writers! |
Roger Waters is on his farewell tour, but the german city of Frankfurt is already saying "bye", canceling his stop there and accusing the former Pink Floyd songwriter of antisemitism.
— Read the restThey also emphasized the use of antisemitic imagery in Waters' performances, one of which includes a balloon in the shape of a pig with a Star of David printed on it alongside a host of corporate logos.
In this Oceanliner Designs video, they look at 5 of the most well-preserved shipwrecks in the world. Four of them are still underwater, one (the amazing Vasa) is in a museum in Stockholm, Sweden.
Sarah Thomas, a tutor to the super-rich, spills the tea on what it's like to tutor the children of the ultra-wealthy. She spent a lot of time on mega yachts and hotels, including an underwater suite in Dubai where sharks swim past the windows. — Read the rest
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