Month: September 2023

Technology is the single greatest contributor to climate change but it may also soon be used to offset the damage we’ve done to our planet since the Industrial Age began.

In September 2018, a project in Myanmar used drones to fire “seed missiles” into remote areas of the country where trees were not growing. Less than a year later, thousands of those seed missiles have sprouted into 20-inch mangrove saplings that could literally be a case study in how technology can be used to innovate our way out of the climate change crisis.

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“We now have a case confirmed of what species we can plant and in what conditions,” Irina Fedorenko, co-founder of Biocarbon Engineering, told Fast Company. “We are now ready to scale up our planting and replicate this success.”

According to Fedoranko, just two operators could send out a mini-fleet of seed missile planting drones that could plant 400,000 trees a day — a number that quite possibly could make massive headway in combating the effects of manmade climate change.

The drones were designed by an ex-NASA engineer. And with a pressing need to reseed an area in Myanmar equal to the size of Rhode Island, the challenge is massive but suddenly within reach. Bremley Lyngdoh, founder and CEO of World Impact, says reseeding that area could theoretically house as many as 1 billion new trees.

“Obviously, planting a billion trees will take a long time without the help of drones,” Lyngdoh told Fast Company.

But they’ve now got a powerful new ally in their corner. For context, it took the Worldview Foundation 7 years to plant 6 million trees in Myanmar. Now, with the help of the drones, they hope to plant another 4 million before the end of 2019.

Myanmar is a great case study for the project. In addition to the available land for the drone project, the nation has been particularly hit by the early effects of climate change in recent years. Rising sea levels are having a measurable impact on the population. In addition to their ability to clear CO2 from the atmosphere, healthy trees can also help solidify the soil, which can reduce the kind of soil erosion that has been affecting local populations in Myanmar.

Going forward, technologies like seed-planting drones could help stem the tide of catastrophic climate change while our governments and societies work to change the habits of consumers and corporations that are driving the problem. Our endless hunger for new technology may be the driving force behind climate change and deforestation but it could also end up being the solution to a problem.

This article originally appeared on 4.17.19

These are called “anti-homeless spikes.” They’re about as friendly as they sound.

As you may have guessed, they’re intended to deter people who are homeless from sitting or sleeping on that concrete step. And yeah, they’re pretty awful.

The spikes are a prime example of how cities design spaces to keep homeless people away.

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Not all concrete steps have spikes on them, but outdoor seating in cities like Montreal and Tokyo have been sneakily designed to prevent people from resting too comfortably for too long.

This guy sawing through a bench was part of a 2006 protest in Toulouse, France, where public seating intentionally included armrests to prevent people from lying down.

Of course, these designs do nothing to fight the cause or problem of homelessness. They’re just a way of saying to homeless people, “Go somewhere else. We don’t want to look at you,” basically.

One particular set of spikes was outside a former night club in London. And a local group got sick of staring at them.

Leah Borromeo is part of the art collective “Space, Not Spikes” — a group that’s fed up with what she describes as “hostile architecture.“

“Spikes do nothing more than shoo the realities of poverty and inequality away from your backyard — so you don’t have to see it or confront what you can do to make things more equal,” Borromeo told Upworthy. “And that is really selfish.”

“Our moral compass is skewed if we think things like this are acceptable.”

The move by Space, Not Spikes has caused quite a stir in London and around the world. The simple but impactful idea even garnered support from music artist Ellie Goulding.

“That was amazing, wasn’t it?” Borromeo said of Goulding’s shout-out on Instagram.

“[The project has] definitely touched a nerve and I think it is because, as a whole, humans will still look out for each other,” Borromeo told Upworthy. “Capitalism and greed conditions us to look out for ourselves and negate the welfare of others, but ultimately, I think we’re actually really kind.”

“We need to call out injustice and hypocrisy when we see it.”

These spikes may be in London, but the U.S. definitely has its fair share of anti-homeless sentiment, too.

Spikes are pretty obvious — they’re a visual reminder of a problem many cities are trying to ignore. But what we can’t see on the street is the rise of anti-homeless laws that have cropped up from sea to shining sea.

Legislation that targets homeless people — like bans on panhandling and prohibiting people from sleeping in cars — has increased significantly in recent years.

For instance, a report by the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty that analyzed 187 American cities found that there’s been a 43% hike in citywide bans on sitting or lying down in certain spaces since 2011.

Thankfully, groups like “Space, Not Spikes” are out there changing hearts and minds. But they need our help.

The group created a video to complement its work and Borromeo’s hoping its positive underlying message will motivate people to do better.

“[The world] won’t always be happy-clappy because positive social change needs constructive conflict and debate,” she explained. “But we need to call out injustice and hypocrisy when we see it.”

Check out their video below:

This article originally appeared on 07.24.15

I first saw a psychiatrist for my anxiety and depression as a junior in high school.

During her evaluation, she asked about my coursework. I told her that I had a 4.0 GPA and had filled my schedule with pre-AP and AP classes. A puzzled look crossed her face. She asked about my involvement in extracurricular activities. As I rattled off the long list of groups and organizations I was a part of, her frown creased further.

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Finally, she set down her pen and looked at me, saying something along the lines of “You seem to be pretty high-functioning, but your anxiety and depression seem pretty severe. Actually, it’s teens like you who scare me a lot.”

Now I was confused. What was scary about my condition? From the outside, I was functioning like a perfectly “normal” teenager. In fact, I was somewhat of an overachiever.

I was working through my mental illnesses and I was succeeding, so what was the problem?

I left that appointment with a prescription for Lexapro and a question that I would continue to think about for years. The answer didn’t hit me all at once.

Instead, it came to me every time I heard a suicide story on the news saying, “By all accounts, they were living the perfect life.”

It came to me as I crumbled under pressure over and over again, doing the bare minimum I could to still meet my definition of success.

It came to me as I began to share my story and my illness with others, and I was met with reactions of “I had no idea” and “I never would have known.” It’s easy to put depression into a box of symptoms.

Even though we’re often told that mental illness comes in all shapes and sizes, I think we’re still stuck with certain “stock images” of mental health in our heads.

When we see depression and anxiety in adolescents, we see teens struggling to get by in their day-to-day lives. We see grades dropping, and we see involvement replaced by isolation. But it doesn’t always look like this.

And when we limit our idea of mental illness, at-risk people slip through the cracks.

We don’t see the student with the 4.0 GPA or the student who’s active in choir and theater or a member of the National Honor Society or the ambitious teen who takes on leadership roles in a religious youth group.

No matter how many times we are reminded that mental illness doesn’t discriminate, we revert back to a narrow idea of how it should manifest, and that is dangerous.

Recognizing this danger is what helped me find the answer to my question.

Watching person after person — myself included — slip under the radar of the “depression detector” made me realize where that fear comes from. My psychiatrist knew the list of symptoms, and she knew I didn’t necessarily fit them. She understood it was the reason that, though my struggles with mental illness began at age 12, I didn’t come to see her until I was 16.

If we keep allowing our perception of what mental illness looks like to dictate how we go about recognizing and treating it, we will continue to overlook people who don’t fit the mold.

We cannot keep forgetting that there are people out there who, though they may not be able to check off every symptom on the list, are heavily and negatively affected by their mental illness. If we forget, we allow their struggle to continue unnoticed, and that is pretty scary.

This article originally appeared on 06.03.16

This is not news: America does pretty badly when it goes up against other countries academically.

This is true even if we take it one state at a time—no single state, no matter how wealthy or small, matches the top scoring countries. And yet, the U.S. spends more per student than many other countries in the world.

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In the image at the top, each state is mapped to a country that had similar scores on the Program for International Student Assessment, an international test of mathematical reasoning given to 15-year-olds. The top 15 countries are in purple. No, there isn’t any purple on this map.

Reporter Amanda Ripley wanted to figure out why U.S. education outcomes are so mediocre.

She started asking random people what they thought and she followed up on their ideas. The same theories came up over and over: People blamed poverty and diversity for the difference between U.S. students and students everywhere else. But when Ripley dug into the numbers, she discovered that, while those are factors, they don’t fully explain the difference.

No adult could give her a satisfactory answer, so she went to the experts: kids.

Kids spend more time in school than anyone. They’ve got strong opinions about school. They have opinions on what is working.

She talked to the only students who could have firsthand knowledge of the differences between schools in top-performing countries and those in the U.S.: American kids who were exchange students in those countries.

She surveyed hundreds of exchange students and found three major points that they all agreed on.

The students all said that in their host countries:

1. School is harder. There’s less homework but the material is more rigorous. People take education more seriously, from selecting the content to selecting the teachers.
2. Sports are just a hobby. In the U.S., sports are a huge distraction from the business of school, but that’s not the case in other countries.
3. Kids believe there’s something in it for them. The students in other countries deeply believe that what they are doing in school affects how interesting their lives were going to be. Even if they don’t like a class, they see their education as a stepping stone to their future.

To hear more from these amazing kids (and a great story about how an education reporter managed to take an international standardized test), check out the video from PopTech below:

This article originally appeared on 05.22.15

“It was all his idea.”

An offhand suggestion from her boyfriend of two years coupled with her own lifelong love of comic strips like “Calvin and Hobbes” and “Get Fuzzy” gave 22-year-old Catana Chetwynd the push she needed to start drawing an illustrated series about long-term relationships.

Specifically, her own relationship.

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The drawings are refreshingly touching, honest, and instantly recognizable to anyone who’s ever had to learn to live with, for, and around a long-term partner.

Chetwynd says her goal is to explore the peculiar aspects of relationships at different stages, using her own as the master template.

The series combines humor and playful drawings with spot-on depictions of the intense familiarity that long-standing coupledom often brings.

The comics are almost too real — and really, really funny.

If the following comics capture your relationship to a T, you’re most definitely not alone.

(All images by Catana Chetwynd.)

“When I started doing the comic, we hadn’t lived together or anything yet, and now we’ve done the whole thing of moving in together and meeting the parents and everything,” Chetwynd says.

The evolution of their relationship provides the creative fuel for the comic strip. Thankfully, her boyfriend John Freed is fully on board with being depicted in (digital) ink — despite having to occasionally awkwardly explain things that appear in the strip to their family and friends.

The connection she has built with Freed, Chetwynd says she wouldn’t trade for anything — especially now that it inspires her art.

“The end goal for me was always to have somebody that I could be comfortable with in this way, and I think I got that.”

You can follow Catana Comics on Facebook and Twitter, and can view the whole series on Chetwynd’s website.

This article originally appeared on 05.12.17.

Matty Healy, who? Taylor Swift might have found herself a new boo just in time for cuffing season. The singer’s schedule has been filled to the brim with The Eras Tour dates, but somehow she still manages to make time for the events that matter to her. One of those special occasions was her friend and longtime producer Jack Antonoff’s wedding ceremony held last month in New Jersey. The other is Sunday’s Kansas City Chief home game against the Chicago Bears.

What led to Swift’s surprise appearance at Arrowhead Stadium? The answer is, supposedly, her rumored new boyfriend, Travis Kelce. Old clips and social media posts of the team’s tight end gushing about his crush on Swift has people online excited about the potential new romance.

ESPN’s Senior NFL Insider reporter Adam Schefter took to his official X (formerly Twitter) page to confirm that Swift was, in fact, in attendance at the game.

Schefter also shared a picture of Swift inside Kelce’s personal VIP box, showing Swif cheering alongside the footballer’s mother. Earlier in the week, Kelce revealed that he had extended an invitation for Swift to see him play. But about whether the pair are indeed a couple, he and his brother Jason have remained tight-lipped.

We live in a golden age of outside-the-box dating shows. Love is Blind. FBoy Island. Dated & Related. But did you know about Naked Attraction? It’s the U.K.’s most notorious dating show and you can probably guess its hook from the title: It’s got full frontal nudity. It’s been airing on Channel 4 since 2016, and now, finally, it’s been quietly added to the streamer once known as HBO Max.

The Hollywood Reporter picked up on the Max addition, describing the premise thusly:

The streamer has imported six seasons of Naked Attraction, a game show that promises to “start where a good date often ends — naked.” In each episode, a single “chooser” critiques and eliminates six potential dates standing on a stage by scrutinizing their fully nude bodies, which are gradually revealed one part at a time (faces are revealed last). When only two potential dates remain, the chooser strips out of their own clothes too, giving the remaining two contestants the opportunity to critique them. The final couple then go out on a date, with their clothes on.

The cliché has it that the British are prudish, unlike loosey goosey Americans, but maybe it’s the other way around. The show goes full-on with the full frontal (and backal), and the naughty bits have not been censored for Yanks. Nor do contestants hold back. There’s a ton of body judging, with contestants making comments such as “I don’t like her feet” and “His member is too small.”

All six seasons/series of Naked Attraction that have aired thus far are now available to American Max subscribers, so go at it, if you dare. You can watch a censored version of the trailer in the video below.

(Via THR)

As expected, the 2023 NFL season has not gotten off to a strong start for the Houston Texans. With a new head coach in DeMeco Ryans and rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud under center, there’s hopeful optimism that things will turn around longterm, but this season was never supposed to see an incredible turnaround.

After a rough home loss to the Colts last week, the Texans bounced back impressively on the road in Jacksonville on Sunday, taking a 24-10 lead in the late third quarter thanks in large part to some incredible special teams play. In the first half, they got a touchdown drive set up by a blocked field goal as star rookie defensive end Will Anderson burst through the line to get two hands on the ball and return it into Jaguars territory.

In the second half, it was the unlikeliest of special teams heroes, as fullback Andrew Beck received a short kickoff as the upback, muffed it, picked it up, and returned it 85 yards down the sidelines for a touchdown.

It’s an incredible return from a guy whose job is usually blocking on kick returns, not running the ball back. Beck showed some speed and, most impressively, balance on the sideline as he high stepped out of a couple diving tackle attempts to take it to the house.

Houston still has work to do on offense, which is expected with a rookie QB, but Ryans has them playing much more competently on defense — they had a pair of turnovers forced in the first three quarters — and special teams to start his tenure and that should excite fans in Houston.

The New Orleans Saints have gotten off to a good start to the season with a 2-0 record thanks in large part to them having one of the (if not the) best defenses in the NFL.

On the other side of the ball they’re led by Derek Carr, who may not be among the NFL’s elite at quarterback, but certainly gives the Saints a competent and quality veteran starter to manage the offense and play complementary ball alongside their defense. On Sunday, the Saints put forth their best half of football thus far, taking a 17-0 lead on the road in Green Bay at the break. The defense contributed one of the touchdowns with Carr providing the other, and it looked in the mid-third as though the Saints would be cruising to a win and the good vibes of a 3-0 start.

However, on a third down dropback, Carr got slung to the ground by Packers defensive lineman Rashan Gary, slamming onto his throwing shoulder, where he would stay down on the ground and receive attention from the training staff.

Carr would eventually walk off the field and to the locker room for X-rays on that shoulder, with the Saints officially ruling him as questionable with a shoulder injury.

That meant Jameis Winston was inserted under center for the next drive, with the Saints at least having the luxury of having one of the best backups in the league still on their roster. However, the Saints organization and fans will be waiting nervously for an update on Carr’s health, as he took a nasty hit on that shoulder when he was thrown violently to the ground, and losing him for an extended period would be highly unfortunate.

UPDATE: Carr was ruled out with a shoulder injury later in the second half.

Usher’s Vegas residency may be coming to an end, but Sin City hasn’t seen the last of him. In February 2024, the musician will take the stage as the featured headliner during the Super Bowl LVIII Halftime show. Although fans are looking forward to him playing the hits, Usher wants to give the world a taste of something new.

Following the news of his upcoming performance, Usher’s official Apple Music page revealed the release of his next album, called Coming Home. The site reveals its cover, expected release date, and the number of songs set to appear. So far, the only named track is his single, “Good Good,” which features Summer Walker and 21 Savage.

During an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Usher shared the title’s meaning and talked about the album’s creative vision. “[This album] is a love letter to the legacy of my career. I’ve been coming home in a lot of different ways,” he said. “The choice of music. Reconnection to some of the people that I’ve worked with from my past and people who I’ve always wanted to work with… In a sense, I’m coming home because I am in that comfortable space.”

Coming Home is out 2/11/2024 via Mega/Gamma. Find more information here.