In May 2005, under auspices of the Consortium for the Barcode of Life (CBOL), David Schindel organized a meeting in London of a Database Working Group that addressed access to biodiversity literature. Their discussions led directly to establishment of the Biodiversity Heritage Library, a consortium of libraries of natural history museums, under the leadership of Thomas Garnett (Smithsonian, Washington DC) and Graham Higley (Museum of Natural History, London) and to a request for funds, which the Richard Lounsbery Foundation supported 25 April 2006. Jesse Ausubel encouraged the development at each stage. April 11th kicks-off the Biodiversity Heritage Library’s 10th anniversary celebration, “BHL at 10: Celebrating Ten Years of Inspiring Discovery through free access to biodiversity knowledge.” BHL now offers about 50 million pages. Congratulations to all, and enjoy.
Blog
Zero emission power plant construction
We are pleased to read that North Carolina-based company NET Power Breaks Ground on Demonstration Plant for World’s First Emissions-Free, Low-Cost Fossil Fuel Power Technology. The NET Power technology, which uses carbon dioxide as a working fluid to drive a combustion turbine, is precisely what we proposed in our work on Zero Emission Power Plants during the 1990s with Cesare Marchetti, Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Eugen Yantovski, and colleagues at Tokyo Electric Power. See, for example, the sections on ZEPPs in Five worthy ways to spend large amounts of money for research on environment and resources (The Bridge 29(3): 4-16, 1999) and JH Ausubel Big green energy machines (The Industrial Physicist 10(5): 20-24, 2004). We wish for the success of NET Power and also Clean Energy Systems, another firm with promising ZEPP technology.
Energy Xchange radio interview
The Energy Xchange, an independent producer of podcasts, recorded a 1-hour conversation on energy of
Scott W. Tinker – director, Bureau of Economic Geology,University of Texas at Austin;
Steven E. Koonin– former undersecretary for science, U.S. Department of Energy
Jesse H. Ausubel – director, Program for the Human Environment, The Rockefeller University;
Podcast and transcript are here. Faster to browse the text than listen.
Glasgow Cities lecture
Glasgow University will host a lecture by Jesse Ausubel Monday 17 April on The Nature of the City as part of a workshop, “Future cities: Do cities have limits?”
Here is the lecture on YouTube:
Rare mineral species
Want a special Valentine? Forget diamonds, get Sardinian Ichnusaite. The magazine American Mineralogist has published “On the nature and significance of rarity in mineralogy” by Robert Hazen and Jesse Ausubel.
People enjoy the news – covered in at least 51 countries and 19 languages.
BBC
Earth’s rarest minerals catalogued
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35569659
DPA / APA (newswires, Germany, Austria)
Weniger als ein Würfel Zucker: Manche Mineralien sind extrem selten
(Less than a sugar cube: Some minerals are extremely rare)
Die Welt, Germany
Vergessen Sie Diamanten! Verschenken Sie Edelsteine!
(Forget diamonds! Offer gems!)
Reuters
For Valentine’s Day gift, forget diamonds: try ichnusaite
New Scientist, UK
Earth’s rarest minerals could hint at life on other planets
Europa Press (Spain)
MÁS DIFÍCILES DE ENCONTRAR QUE LOS DIAMANTES Se contabilizan más de 2.500 minerales raros en la Tierra
(HARDER TO FIND THAN DIAMONDS more than 2,500 rare minerals are recorded on Earth)
Agencia EFE (Spain)
Los 2.550 minerales raros de la Tierra hacen único al planeta azul
(2,550 rare earth minerals make the blue planet unique )
ANSA Italia Anelli davvero unici? Dimentica i diamanti meglio un ichnusaite sardo https://www.ansa.it/lifestyle/notizie/lusso/accessori/2016/02/10/anelli-davvero-unici-dimentica-i-diamanti-meglio-un-ichnusaite-sardo_5eec0492-7c5c-4928-88b4-81d4cc3e6504.html
Russian news https://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=2720495
Rare cobalt minerals (species burgessite, cobaltkortingite, cobaltomenite, pakhomovskyite, and theresemagnanite) are all pink or red. Cobaltomenite is known from 4 localities: Argentina (the type locality), Congo, Bolivia, and Utah. Cobaltmenite samples from the Emery County, Utah locality:
1) https://bit.ly/1O8mtjR
2) https://bit.ly/20SjsRj
Photos: https://rruff.info/
Short videos of Galatee’s The Seasons
For Galatee’s new film, The Seasons, for which Jesse Ausubel served as a science advisor, great 30-second Japanese teaser:
https://youtu.be/pRHfSgdCXMs
And a 1 minute 42 second teaser:
And one that shows some of the film’s techniques:
https://www.facebook.com/LesSaisons.lefilm/videos/1132390206780130/
Drone flight over Rock U campus
One of our colleagues took his drone for this aerial tour of The Rockefeller University campus. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TP1Hqy9Tb4
Jews in Time and Space
As part of our ongoing interest in diffusion of social phenomena, PHE researcher Iddo Wernick has published a paper, Jews in Time and Space, using the writing of books to describe historical development of the Jewish people as waves of organic development, still ongoing.
ANSI Standards for DNA Barcodes
DNA barcoding gains another level of community acceptance–the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) will publish “Species-Level Identification of Animal Cells through Mitochondrial Cytochrome c Oxidase Subunit 1 (CO1) DNA Barcodes” on January 16, 2016. Mark Stoeckle is a co-author.
Michelson Memorial Lecture
We post “Ocean Past, Ocean Future: Reflections on the Shift from the 19th to 21st Century Ocean”, Jesse H. Ausubel, Michelson Memorial Lecture, 15 October 2015 United States Naval Academy, Annapolis MD.”