What did you learn this week? We learned …
…we may be able to geoengineer our weather to help mitigate climate change, and there is an actual debate in climate science, but it’s not the one you think.
How has the Gulf Stream impacted American history?
… the Asian American band The Slants may or may not be entitled to risky free speech.
Do you think The Slants are protected by the Bill of Rights? Why or why not?
… a new tactile atlas helps the blind “see” maps.
Photograph by Bain news Service, courtesy Library of Congress. Public domain
What other challenges do cartographers face?
… the impossible question of who decides who counts as a Native American.
Are race-based elections legal?
… the Indian subcontinent was not entirely isolated before crashing into Eurasia, and California is preparing for the inevitable.
Photograph by James P. Blair, National Geographic
How would you prepare for “the big one”?
… how Antarctic architecture went from wooden huts to sci-fi chic.
Photograph by René Robert, International Polar Foundation
Those old Antarctic huts still have goodies in them!
… how poor countries actually help develop rich countries, and how China’s membership in the WTO didn’t quite work out the way we thought it would.
What is the World Trade Organization?
… researchers tied the world’s tiniest knot and created the world’s coldest object.
How might these molecular knots be used?
… China’s first freight train to the UK made it safely to London.
… a Herculean fish is a crucial ally in the fight against a megadam in Alaska.
How do conflicts that are connected to the environment get resolved?
… we may be in a countdown to a world without chocolate.
How is the chocolate trade a global phenomenon?
… there’s a handy critical-thinking cheat sheet.
NatGeo, I love you. But your comment, “Are race-based elections legal?” is inflammatory and provides no link to a substantive discussion on the topic. Laws related to Native Americans are not “race-based.” Rather, tribes have a political government-to-government relationship with the federal government. Interest groups who are anti-Native American and anti-tribe frequently push these “race-based” arguments even though the U.S. Supreme Court rejected these misinterpretations over 40 years ago. See Morton v. Mancari, 417 U.S. 535 (1974). Those who continue to make these arguments are engaging in race-bating.
Please think critically before providing divisive and incorrect commentary. That kind of rhetoric has no place at Nat Geo.
Incredible information. Thanks.
Antarctica.. Full of secrets of lives on earth, their ages.. It’s a very fascinating place… Completely isolated no one is there to disturb us.. But it’s not even possible to survive there for life time… Thought of living there could be adventurous for sometime but at the end of the day it would be boring.. I wish I could visit at least for one day there in my life..