The Un-damming of the White Salmon

"The Condit Dam in Washington State has been dramatically dismantled, to restore a salmon stream for the first time in a century.  

For 98 years, the 125-foot high Condit Dam in southeastern Washington State held back the White Salmon River, creating a serene lake, but choking off the waterway to salmon. In an historic effort, the dam was dramatically breached. Ecologists hope the increased flow of water will restore the waterway to fish and other aquatic organisms, as well as the birds and mammals that rely on them."

via news.nationalgeographic.com

 

Yulia Brodskaya : Babushka { "бабушка" - grandmother }



"I believe that one of the main reasons I enjoy the paper craft, is due to my love of the material: paper. Although I've always had a special fascination for paper, it has taken me a while to find my own way of working with it; and then it took a little longer to find out that the technique I have been using so intensively is called quilling - it involves the use of strips of paper that can be rolled, shaped, and glued to the background."
via artyulia.com

 

Tensegrity Balls


Here is a bouncy structure made of dowels and rubber bands in which no sticks directly touch each other. The compression members are not connected, yet the entire structure supports compression, which is an unusual property often called “tensegrity.” In this example, the thirty sticks follow the edges of a dodecahedron, so there are twelve five-fold spirals.
via blog.makezine.com

 

Future Farms : Robotic Swarm Farming

Despite its quaint reputation, agriculture has always been an early adapter of technology. This is evident from the beginning of mechanization with the cotton gin, McCormick's Reaper, tractors, hybrid seed, to genetically engineered plants that protect themselves and grow in arid environments. Yields have grown quickly, but demand from developing countries and population growth are growing faster Prospero is the working prototype of an Autonomous Micro Planter (AMP) that uses a combination of swarm and game theory and is the first of four steps. It is meant to be deployed as a group or "swarm". The other three steps involve autonomous robots that tend the crops, harvest them, and finally one robot that can plant, tend, and harvest--autonomously transitioning from one phase to another.

via dorhoutrd.com


The Farm (Alexis Rockman, 2000, oil & acrylic on wood pane)

 

Talol, the Mother of Waters, the Caster of Cloud Shadows


"Mt. Rainier has quite a few tricks up its sleeve for adding additional beauty to the Pacific Northwest, from the majestic snow-capped peaks, to the mysterious lenticular cloud displays. 

But another trick it pulls off during the fall and winter is to cast a big shadow on a brilliant sunrise.

It only happens when the sun rises farther to the south as we head toward the winter solstice and has to be in the exact position to where Rainier blocks the first rays of morning light."
via komonews.com