International Year of Biodiversity

2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity, thanks to a declaration by the UN. It’s an opportunity to reflect on the true value of life on earth… and it’s a call for action. It involves dozens of events and celebrations throughout the year, all with the aim to educate and inspire. With that in mind, the Convention on Biological Diversity is turning to work created by students in the VFS Digital Design program for help. Biodiversity is a motion design project by Roberta Ramalho, Jesse Lang, Juan Carlos Arenas Madrid, and Amanda Healey.

For other languages http://www.cbd.int/2010/multimedia/

via www.vfs.com

Ocean Pollution: Not Just For the Oil Companies

Humans have found a diverse number of ways to ruin one of the earth's most beautiful resources. Everything from biological waste to nuclear reactors are being dumped in the ocean.

This infographic will reveal a few types of ocean dumping. This is a topic that is on all of our minds and in the media – thanks BP – but oil is just the tip of the iceberg.

Mother Nature is not happy!

via www.marisys.com

What Would Happen If the Earth Stood Still?

The following is not a futuristic scenario. It is not science fiction. It is a demonstration of the capabilities of GIS to model the results of an extremely unlikely, yet intellectually fascinating query: What would happen if the earth stopped spinning? ArcGIS was used to perform complex raster analysis and volumetric computations and generate maps that visualize these results.

via www.esri.com

Potentially Hazardous Asteroid to Collide With Earth in 2182

The potentially hazardous asteroid '(101955) 1999 RQ36' has a one-in-a-thousand chance of impacting the Earth, and more than half of this probability indicates that this could happen in the year 2182, based on a global study in which Spanish researchers have been involved. Knowing this fact may help design in advance mechanisms aimed at deviating the asteroid's path.

via www.sciencedaily.com

How much space crap is circling the Earth?

This illustration created by Australia's Electro Optic Systems aerospace company shows a view of the Earth from geostationary height depicting swarms of space debris - approximately 50,000 of the half-million or more objects bigger than 1cm - in Low Earth Orbit. An Australian company said that it had developed a laser tracking system that will stop chunks of space debris colliding with spacecraft and satellites in the Earth's orbit. Electric Optic Systems said lasers fired from the ground would locate and track debris as small as ten centimetres (four inches) across, protecting astronauts and satellites. Debris on the eastern side of the image are in the Earth's shadow and so not visible to the eye.

via www.telegraph.co.uk