Discovery
Expert shows minerals history:
A geology researcher from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale has created an exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History in New York on the history of minerals.
Daniel Hummer’s exhibit went on display recently. It recounts the history of the original 12 minerals in the universe and how they evolved over billions of years, according to the university.
Its message is that minerals’ evolution and life are interconnected in ways previously unknown.
“Minerals may have played a role in creating life by allowing new interactions of molecules on their surfaces, and in turn, life alters the environment enough to allow the formation of new minerals,” Hummer said in a university news release. “So the evolution of both life and minerals rely on each other in ways that we’re only beginning to understand.”
Hummer is assistant professor in the School of Earth Systems and Sustainability at SIU. The museum asked him to develop the exhibit in 2018 and it was supposed to open last year until the pandemic hit. (AP)
Environmentalists slam Mexico: Environmentalists criticized Mexico’s state-owned oil company after a gas leak at an underwater pipeline unleashed a subaquatic fireball that appeared to boil the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
Greenpeace Mexico said the accident appeared to have been caused by the failure of an underwater valve and that it illustrates the dangers of Mexico policy of promoting fossil fuels.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has bet heavily on drilling more wells and buying or building oil refineries. He touts oil as “the best business in the world.”
Greenpeace wrote in a statement that the fire, which took five hours to extinguish, “demonstrates the serious risks that Mexico’s fossil fuel model poses for the environment and people’s safety.”
Climate activist Greta Thunberg reposted a video clip of the massive fireball on her Twitter account.
“Meanwhile the people in power call themselves ‘climate leaders’ as they open up new oilfields, pipelines and coal power plants — granting new oil licenses exploring future oil drilling sites,” Thunberg wrote. “This is the world they are leaving for us.” (AP)
Big cats, bears get jab: A San Franfirst cisco Bay Area zoo is inoculating its big cats, bears and ferrets against the coronavirus as part of a national effort to protect animal species using an experimental vaccine.
Tigers Ginger and Molly were the
two animals at the Oakland Zoo to get the vaccine this week, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The doses were donated and developed by veterinary pharmaceutical company Zoetis in New Jersey.
Alex Herman, vice president of veterinary services at the zoo, said none of the animals have gotten the virus, but they wanted to be proactive. Tigers, black and grizzly bears, mountain lions and ferrets were the first to receive the first of two doses.
In a press release, she said the zoo has used barriers for social distancing and staff have worn protective gear to protect susceptible species. “We’re happy and relieved to now be able to better protect our animals with this vaccine,” she said.
Zoetis is donating more than 11,000 doses for animals living in nearly 70 zoos, as well as more than a dozen conservatories, sanctuaries, academic institutions and government organizations located in 27 states, according to the press release.
The San Diego Zoo started inoculating primates in January after a COVID-19 breakout among a troop of gorillas at its Safari Park. Great apes share 98% of their DNA with humans and are especially susceptible, as are felines. (AP)
A sculpture symbolizing Britain’s complex colonial ties and an artwork featuring the faces of 850 people are set to go on display in Trafalgar Square, one of London’s highest-profile venues for public art.
City officials on Monday announced the next two works to occupy the “fourth plinth,” a large stone pedestal in the central London square.
From 2022 to 2024 the plinth will display Malawi-born artist Samson Kambalu’s “Antelope,” a sculpture of Pan-Africanist leader John Chilembwe beside European missionary John Chorley. Based on a 1914 photograph, it depicts Chilembwe as the much larger figure, “revealing the hidden narratives of under-represented peoples in the history of the British Empire in Africa and beyond,” City Hall said.
Mexican artist Teresa Margolles’
“850 Improntas (850 Imprint),” featuring casts of the faces of people from around the world, will be installed in 2024. City Hall said “the ‘life masks’ will be arranged round the plinth in the form of a Tzompantli, a skull rack from Mesoamerican civilizations” of what is now Central America and Mexico. (AP)