Good morning, fellow Gnusies! Welcome to your regularly scheduled break from [censored].
I have to admit that I was kind of at a loss as to a theme for today’s GNR until I looked out the window of the train yesterday and saw some of the artwork sponsored by the Cleveland RTA a few years ago.
Graffiti is one person’s vandalism and another’s artwork. I’ve always enjoyed watching the freight trains go by while waiting for the Red Line — a lot of the shipping containers have been tagged with colorful names, artwork, and commentary. There’s more on various bridge supports, retaining walls, etc. Many of the buildings downtown and elsewhere have huge, gorgeous murals painted on the exposed sides. Others are homes to school or local groups’ projects.
The pieces I saw yesterday, while not new to me, always manage to engage my brain, given that they’re several stories tall and wrapped around cylindrical highway overpass supports. You can read about the projects here:
Cleveland RTA Launches Innovative Artwork Initiative (10/20/15)
Red Line art blitz (Posted 5/16/16; Updated 5/19/19)
The works I saw were the Overpass Pillars (Jasper), the second left-most point on the Red Line on the map for the Red Line art blitz. I see more on a regular basis — most of the artwork west of Tower City, actually, when I’m paying attention to the outdoors on my commute.
But why have it? Why do it? Resistance often shows up first in artistic expression: art, music, poetry, literature. Mediums of hope and community all wrapped up in simpler terms.
Graffiti — or public artwork — is often for society at large, the wider community, as many eyes as care to take note. It can also be for a tiny subset, a community within a community. It ranges from the profane to the profound to the whimsical, topic and longevity often dependent on location. Obviously, one end of the spectrum I won’t be going into, but the rest?
Uplifting messages from one commuter to another, written on the backs of bus seats. Musical recommendations, nuanced discussions of various problematical industries, collaborative artwork, directions to counseling in response to messages of stress and despair, political and religious commentary in restrooms — currently and in the recent past in a local university’s women’s restroom.
One particular musical recommendations list has been compiled and turned into a spotify list here. (I haven’t listened to all of it, so I can’t comment as to its work appropriateness.)
In any case, graffiti can be, and often is, at least a way for community to say “Wake up! Pay attention!” And sometimes that’s all it takes. (And if I’m currently imagining my November ballot as a huge can of spray paint, well. I will neither confirm nor deny.)
Start with some music, and on with the news.
Scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have developed a device that uses a natural protein to create electricity from moisture in the air, a new technology they say could have significant implications for the future of renewable energy, climate change and in the future of medicine.
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“We are literally making electricity out of thin air,” says Yao. “The Air-gen generates clean energy 24/7.” Lovely, who has advanced sustainable biology-based electronic materials over three decades, adds, “It’s the most amazing and exciting application of protein nanowires yet.”
The new technology developed in Yao’s lab is non-polluting, renewable and low-cost. It can generate power even in areas with extremely low humidity such as the Sahara Desert. It has significant advantages over other forms of renewable energy including solar and wind, Lovley says, because unlike these other renewable energy sources, the Air-gen does not require sunlight or wind, and “it even works indoors.”
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The researchers say that the current generation of Air-gen devices are able to power small electronics, and they expect to bring the invention to commercial scale soon. Next steps they plan include developing a small Air-gen “patch” that can power electronic wearables such as health and fitness monitors and smart watches, which would eliminate the requirement for traditional batteries. They also hope to develop Air-gens to apply to cell phones to eliminate periodic charging.
We’ve had a number of breakthroughs in new and amazing ways to generate electricity recently. We can use all of them and then some.
What do you do if you live near a tiger reserve? One couple has an answer.
It was his love for nature and wildlife that led Aditya Singh to quit his Indian civil services job, leave his well-appointed house in Delhi and settle in a remote corner of Rajasthan, abutting the famous Ranthambore Tiger Reserve, in 1998. Over the last 20 years, Singh has been buying tracts of land adjacent to Ranthambore and simply letting the forest grow back.
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“I just bought this and did nothing to it except removing the invasive species. We allowed the land to recover and now after 20 years it has become a lush green patch of forest which is frequently visited by all kind of animals, including tigers, leopards and wild boars, throughout the year,” said Singh while showing the land to this visiting Mongabay-India staff writer.
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As a result, the pressure of predators like tigers from the RTR venturing into fields of farmers has gone down. “It is simply because the animals understand that in this patch of the forest they get prey, water and safe shelter without any disturbance,” chuckled Singh.
Monday was National Random Acts of Kindness day.
As patients came into the Urgent Care Clinic of Lincoln, they were given a card and told by Dr. Rice that he was going to be paying their co-pays, something that meant a lot to many 10/11 NOW spoke with.
"I think that we have a culture that sometimes forgets that we can have a much better world if we start being kinder to each other,” said Dr. Don Rice.
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Rice says the random act was inspired by a kind family friend, who died from cancer.
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Dr. Rice says he hopes to see patients pay it forward. The card includes the hashtag #kindnessiscontagious so he can follow along if any post on social media.
You know I love solutions that cover more than one issue at once. This one? Covers a lot.
In a lab at IndieBio, a biotech accelerator based in San Francisco, a team of entrepreneurs has spent the last several months developing new bio-based packaging that can respond to the environment and detect safety issues, but can also be safely composted in a backyard. “We’re incorporating sensing mechanisms into our materials that allow it to detect things like spoilage or even cold chain monitoring,” says Viirj Kan, CEO of the startup, called Primitives.
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The basic material, without added sensing capabilities, is made from renewable sources like algae, which has the advantage of sucking up large quantities of CO2 as it grows. The company is also exploring the use of other feedstocks for the algae, like agricultural waste. On its own, the new biomaterial can block oxygen more effectively than current petroleum-based film packaging, helping it keep products inside fresh longer. It also blocks damaging UV-B rays. In tests, it breaks down more easily than other compostable plastic, and is designed to be compostable in a backyard rather than only in industrial composting facilities, like many compostable plastic products.
There’s more good info in the article. Well worth reading!
Brazil has one of the most burdensome tax systems in the world according to the World Bank. But cities are offering exemptions and deductions for some amazing things.
A slew of Brazilian cities are passing laws that offer tax deductions or exemptions for citizens who want to pitch in to restore the health and beauty of their communities.
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For anyone who’s traveled to South or Central America, the site of a stray dog is nothing unusual. In the city of Quinta de Sol, the Rescue Program for Abandoned Dogs is a measure to encourage citizens to adopt stray dogs in exchange for a tax break.
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In the cities of Belo Horizonte and Minas Gerais, a homeowner can get an IPTU exemption if they maintain a wild garden on their property. Described in the law as ‘private ecological reserves’ the specifics of the legislation reads that the reserve of anyone seeking an exemption must contain “primitive or semi-primitive natural conditions” that aid in the “preservation of the biological cycle of species of fauna or flora native to Brazil”.
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As a way to ease the burden for those who have served, Fortaleza is offering exemptions for WWII veterans. The city of Acros is following suit for citizens with debilitating or chronic diseases like certain cancers, Alzheimer’s, and MS. Acros has issued 20 tax exemptions since 2017 for people with catalogued chronic diseases.
We could use some tax breaks like that here in the U.S. Just sayin’.
Anybody here like Beethoven? Anybody?
Zsuzsanna Foldi has been deaf all her life. Still, with her hands placed on the double bass, sitting among musicians in Budapest’s Danubia orchestra, she can enjoy and literally feel Beethoven’s famous Fifth Symphony.
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Some of the audience sit next to the musicians and place their hands on the instruments to feel the vibration. Others hold balloons that convey the vibration of the sounds. Some are given special hyper-sensitive hearing aids.
Mate Hamori, the conductor of the orchestra that is holding a series of concerts this spring for people with a hearing loss, said their aim was to bring music to people who otherwise have no chance to enjoy it, and to call attention to hearing difficulties that are often ignored.
“So the idea was to somehow lure those who are the most capable of sympathising with Beethoven and his own suffering into the world of music,” Hamori said.
Beethoven’s hearing gradually deteriorated and he wrote the Fifth Symphony already with his hearing impaired in 1804-1808.
As a former violinist, I loved this article. Someone was chopping onions in here, I just know it.
I know I don’t normally dip my toes into the political sphere. But there are a few things I have to bring more attention to, particularly for those who are only here occasionally or irregularly:
Major win for voting rights: Court blocks Florida GOP's modern-day poll tax on 1.1 million people
Federal Judge Stops Georgia GOP's Voter Suppression in its Tracks
That’s it for me today! Have some more music to take us on out.