SCIENCE

 Photo via Brain Pickings.

Why do we go to space? "In the beginning of our space program, the answer had a lot to do with war and paranoia. But with the dawn of the space shuttle, that all changed." Explore invite us to watch the new episode of It’s Okay To Be Smart, the thoughts of Isaac Asimov on why spend money on it, and also a priceless conversation between Carl Sagan, Ray Bradbury, and Isaac Asimov on the subject. Have a look at all the links via Explore.

Photo: The Procrastinator (some) Times.

This week Adam Corner for New Scientist asks a very simple question about climate science: why the world won't listen? Surely, back in 2008, after Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth buzz the scientific and economic cases were made for political and civil actions to be taken. However, the exact opposite happened and "apathy, lack of interest and even outright denial are more widespread than they were in 2008". Apparently, when it comes to climate change, as the New Scientist points out, "communicators need to find better ways to connect with their audience". Read full article here.

 

Image via Meat the Future Cookbook IndieGogo.

This week the people from Next Nature shared with us their new project the In Vitro Meat Cookbook, a visually stunning exploration of the new “food cultures” lab-grown meat might create and their contribution to solve the world's protein crisis. "This book approaches lab-grown meat not just from a design and engineering perspective, but also from a societal and ethical one." If you want more info or you want to back-up this project, click here.

CULTURE & ENTERTAINMENT

Image via Maptia.

"The relationship between words and their meaning is a fascinating one", specially when we come across a concept that truly cannot be properly explained between cultures, like the popular Brazilian 'saudade' or Milan Kundera's 'lítost'. Inspired by 'Through The Language Glass', a book by Guy Deutscher that argues that our mother tongues shape our experiences of the world, Maptia did a beautiful job illustrating 11 of those untranslatable words. Have a look here.

Photo: Jorge Luis Borges photographed by Vasco Szinetar via Vasco Szinetar's Blog.


The Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges was born on August 24th, 1899 (¡feliz cumpleaños!), so there was some articles and blog posts  celebrating his wonderful stories and imagination. Explore, a Brain Pickings project edited by Maria Popova in partnership with Noodle, features a fragment of an imagined old Chinese Enciclopaedia named Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge created by Jorge Luis Borges in his 1942 short story The Analytical Language of John Wilkins. According to that animals are classified as  follows:

1. those that belong to the Emperor,

2. embalmed ones,

3. those that are trained,

4. suckling pigs,

5. mermaids,

6. fabulous ones,

7. stray dogs,

8. those included in the present classification,

9. those that tremble as if they were mad,

10. innumerable ones,

11. those drawn with a very fine camelhair brush,

12. others,

13. those that have just broken a flower vase,

14. those that from a long way off look like flies.

Check Explore, a very nice project; check Venezuelan photographer Vasco Szinetar's work, he is famous for his mirror portraits; and if you haven't yet, read Borges, it's good for the mind and the soul.