Cracking the Code in Satellite Data
Boston MA (SPX) May 02, 2016 -
The challenge: New constellations of small satellites will launch in the near future, generating a deluge of imagery for analysts to sift through to find patterns and answers to perplexing issues.
To help prepare for the onslaught, Draper is sponsoring a contest for bright/creative/audacious contestants to demonstrate the skills of intelligence analysts or crime scene investigators as they ...
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BlackSky inks US deal to enhance global decision-making
Seattle WA (SPX) May 02, 2016 -
BlackSky has announced that it has established an official partnership with the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). UNITAR, created in 1965, is an autonomous body within the United Nations that was formed to develop capacities to enhance global decision-making and support country-level action for shaping a better future.
"With BlackSky's constellation, we not only ...
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US climate-adaptation plans long on ideas, short on details, priorities
Ann Arbor MI (SPX) May 04, 2016 -
An analysis of more than 40 climate-adaptation plans from across the U.S. shows that local communities are good at developing strategies to combat the harmful effects of climate change but often fail to prioritize their goals or to provide implementation details.
In the past decade, several dozen U.S. communities have created stand-alone climate-adaptation plans that describe how climate c ...
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Sentinel-1B delivers
Paris (ESA) May 02, 2016 -
Launched on 25 April from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana, Sentinel-1B has produced its first images only two hours after the radar was switched on - a record time for a space radar.
The first observations were taken a little more than two days after launch, on 28 April at 05:37 GMT, after Sentinel-1B had followed a complicated routine to deploy its 12 m-long radar and two 10-m long so ...
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Satellite coverage for polar bears and penguins
McLean VA (SPX) May 02, 2016 -
Although children's books and animated films often show them frolicking together, penguins and polar bears actually occupy opposite ends of the earth. Polar bears are found in the far northern latitudes, while penguins occupy the world's southern oceans and land masses. But Intelsat General provides satellite connectivity to customers with facilities at both ends of the world, one at the norther ...
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Model predicts how forests will respond to climate change
Vancouver WA (SPX) May 04, 2016 -
Drought could render the U.S. Northeast's mixed forests unsustainable after 2050 while Washington's Cascade Mountains may require tropical and subtropical forest species, according to researchers using a new type of mathematical model at Washington State University.
The Tolerance Distribution Model (TDM) is the first to use the tolerances of different types of forests to drought, flood and ...
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It's the rain's fault
Southampton UK (SPX) May 04, 2016 -
Rainwater may play an important role in the process that triggers earthquakes, according to new research. Researchers from the University of Southampton, GNS Science (New Zealand), the University of Otago, and GFZ Potsdam (Germany), identified the sources and fluxes of the geothermal fluids and mineral veins from the Southern Alps of New Zealand where the Pacific and Australian Plates collide al ...
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A single-celled organism capable of learning
Toulouse, France (SPX) May 04, 2016 -
For the first time, scientists have demonstrated that an organism devoid of a nervous system is capable of learning. A team from the Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale (CNRS/Universite Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier) has succeeded in showing that a single-celled organism, the protist Physarum polycephalum, is capable of a type of learning called habituation.
This discovery throws ...
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The United States absorbed carbon dioxide despite a drought
Zurich, Switzerland (SPX) May 04, 2016 -
In the US, spring 2012 was the warmest on record. The subsequent summer was dryer and hotter than any summer since the 1930s, a period that became known in the history books as the 'Dust Bowl'. In 2012, drought and heat afflicted almost the entire contiguous United States.
Climate researchers suspected that this summer drought four years ago could turn the contiguous United States into a c ...
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