Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery Since 2002

Daily Archives: July 9, 2019

Seeds of life: The plants suited to climate change

BBC – “Experts at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, selected 11 seeds from plants and trees that may be better suited to climate change than other species. Using a scanning electron microscope, artist Rob Kesseler created striking colourised images of the seeds in extraordinary detail. The five experts at Kew in London chose the species based on characteristics such as resilience to drought and diseases, and suitability to increased global temperatures. Eleanor Wilding, a technical officer in the Crop Wild Relatives Project at Kew, chose the Daucus carota, the wild relative of the carrot. Kesseler produced an image of the seed magnified 30 times to reveal a spiky star-like shape, and coloured it with an orange hue…”

OCLC Research Mini-symposium on the Discovery and Use of Open Collections

“Description – As the volume of digitized heritage collections continues to grow, memory institutions are challenged to making this open content discoverable and usable across repositories. At this mini-symposium in Leiden, guests… learn[ed] about research & development work done in the area of digital image interoperability (IIIF), corpus-building and deep interactions with open collections by… Continue Reading

Trusted data and the future of information sharing

MIT Technology Review – How policy innovation is promoting data sharing and AI. “Data in some form underpins almost every action or process in today’s modern world. Consider that even farming, the world’s oldest industry, is on the verge of a digital revolution, with AI, drones, sensors, and blockchain technology promising to boost efficiencies. The market… Continue Reading

NOAA designates new national marine sanctuary in Maryland

NOAA – Mallows Bay-Potomac River National Marine Sanctuary, about 40 miles south of Washington, D.C., will be the first national marine sanctuary designated since 2000.  “The designation of Mallows Bay as a national marine sanctuary is an exciting milestone for NOAA and an opportunity for the public to celebrate and help protect this piece of… Continue Reading

Firefox 68 arrives with darker reader view, recommended extensions, IT customizations

VentureBeat: “Mozilla today launched Firefox 68 for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS. Firefox 68 includes a darker reader view, recommended extensions, IT Pro customizations, and more. Firefox 68 for desktop is available for download now on Firefox.com, and all existing users should be able to upgrade to it automatically. The Android version is trickling… Continue Reading

Americans Shouldn’t Have to Drive, but the Law Insists on It

The Atlantic – Gregory H. Shill – The automobile took over because the legal system helped squeeze out the alternatives. “…In America, the freedom of movement comes with an asterisk: the obligation to drive. This truism has been echoed by the U.S. Supreme Court, which has pronounced car ownership a “virtual necessity.” The Court’s pronouncement… Continue Reading