This Is Just Too Cute!

This is a ‘Thank you’. Inspired by the countless stories sent to me by shelter workers and volunteers.  

Sir Patrick Stewart Loves A Male Kiss

Video

This is interesting

To Combat Climate Change, Researchers Want to Pull Carbon Dioxide From the Ocean and Turn It Into Rock

Running seawater through an ocean carbon capture plant could chemically convert carbon dioxide to limestone on a grand scale

Excerpt from this story from Smithsonian:

Anew method for combatting climate change feels like a bit of modern-day alchemy: scientists have figured out how to take carbon dioxide out of the ocean and turn it into harmless rock.

For every tonne of carbon dioxide we pump into the air, roughly a quarter of it gets absorbed by the ocean like a giant, watery sponge. All of this excess carbon dioxide is acidifying the water and threatening organisms, such as those with calcium carbonate shells, that are sensitive to the change.

To avert this fate, carbon emissions need to drop—fast. But many scientists also believe that active carbon capture—deliberately pulling carbon dioxide out of the environment—will be a necessary step to help curb, and potentially even reverse, the rise in emissions responsible for countless environmental impacts. However, capturing enough carbon to make a difference is a massive task, one that has so far proved challenging and expensive.

“You’re talking about removing some 10 to 20 gigatonnes of [carbon dioxide] per year, starting from 2050, probably for the next century,” says Gaurav Sant, a civil and environmental engineering professor and director of the Institute for Carbon Management at the University of California, Los Angeles.

To date, most efforts to capture carbon have focused on direct air capture—trying to pull the gas out of the atmosphere. But to make carbon capture more efficient, Sant’s research team is turning to the ocean for help.

Oceans and other large bodies of water can hold more than 150 times more carbon dioxide than the air. Sant and his colleagues’ idea is that if you can remove carbon from the ocean, the water will absorb more from the atmosphere to maintain a state of equilibrium. Now, they’re proposing an innovative way of getting carbon out of the ocean—by turning it into rock.

Seawater contains a lot of calcium and magnesium. When the calcium or magnesium ions combine with carbon dioxide, they form calcite or magnesite. The chemical reaction is similar to how many marine organisms build their shells. But by introducing a third ingredient, electricity, Sant and his team can make that reaction happen quickly, efficiently and, perhaps eventually, on a large scale. Putting this all together, the scientists have proposed a new technology that will run seawater through an electrically charged mesh, using electrolysis to trigger the chemical reactions needed to form carbonate rocks.

So far, the team has built a 1.5-by-1.5-meter prototype that they can flood with simulated seawater. They are collecting data on the amount of carbon dioxide that can be removed over various periods of time, analyzing the process efficiency and the amount of energy required. Aside from simply demonstrating the concept, they are using the model to determine what operational variables might impact the process.

PHOTOS: David Tennant & Olivia Colman On The Set Of Broadchurch In Clevedon 

Production on the third and final series of Broadchurch is continuing and yesterday David Tennant and Olivia Colman were spotted on set in the Somerset town of Clevedon.Today’s filming has moved on to Portishead.

See more here

i saw this on imgur and well, even if something like this is going around on tumblr already it is important.

link to imgur post

He does look good!

I’m into Brazilian jiu jitsu, and there’s a big jiu jitsu community here, which I like a lot.

I feel like the producers of SGA wanted another Kirk/Jack O'Neill and were shocked to find they got the Dude from the Big Lebowski instead

ha, if they wanted another O’Neill they should have stuck with the Ben Browder casting instead of recasting when Ben was off filming the Farscape movie.  Joe played the most laid-back Air Force pilot ever (like seriously, most pilots are Type As who worked their asses off to get in the pilot seat - sort of like top surgeons, that level of work and skill needed to excel).

Joe played John as the zen genius who’s been through the valley of shadows, invited death into his house, and come out the other side into ice. He accepted that he wasn’t going to care about much, but those he did care about (and those who he pledged himself to protect), he would burn the earth to the ground in their defence. But he was real, not some fictional hero type - he was nervous around people, he misread intentions, he geeked out over new tech and toys and the fact that they were on an alien city on another planet, and I think that was the brilliance in how Joe Flanigan played John Sheppard  - John Sheppard was a relatable audience insert.

We got a geek, a fun guy who had a hard time making friends, who never really sees the attention of beautiful women coming because why would they be into him,  who would do anything to protect his friends, who got to fly cool alien planes and stop the bad guys and make nerdy yet appropriate quips while doing so. He was the guy the audience could jump on to move into the story, and I don’t know if it was intentional on Joe’s part or if just happened but man, it worked. I don’t normally  identify with male characters in stories but John Sheppard became my favourite because he he was the hero I could see myself being.

In a way (and this is a tangent) John Sheppard was more like Han Solo than a lot of other recent sci fi characters. In the original trilogy, Han Solo was literally a scruffy bounty hunter who was a bit of a nerd, who acted all tough and suave but really was just a guy who was decided that he was going to be a hero, not because it was a way to get the girl, but because it was what he wanted to do, for himself, for his friends, and for the galaxy. And for the audience, that journey was relatable because we all can imagine coming from a place of reluctance to decide to take on heroic actions.

So anyway tl’dr i have a lot of feelings about John Sheppard and how he was portrayed by Joe Flanigan and how the portrayal was something really out of the ordinary in sci fi etc etc.