Apollo News Snippets – April 2020

It’s tech news time and this month is full of renewable energy ideas, so here we go!
Nature-inspired drone wings could improve efficiency and flight stability.
Solar power at night? Yes!
Flexible devices powered by your own body heat.
Instant hydrogen production could open the doors for sustainable off-the-grid energy needs.
Honeycomb-like anode microstructures could significantly reduce the weight of solid batteries while improving their charge density.
Improved membrane to convert CO2 into usable methanol.

The February 2020 NOAA temperature departure map is basically red all over the land masses with a few isolated pockets of cooler weather in Asia, Africa and North America. Record warmth was mainly clustered over the mid latitudes and Tropics.

In the middle of the coronavirus pandemic life still goes on as NOAA released the February 2020 global climate report and sorry to bring more bad news, yep it was really hot last month. In fact February 2020 is the second hottest February on record and the third hottest month ever on record behind only February and March 2016. As the Trump administration botches the response to the coronavirus outbreak, do we have any hope they will ever address the global climate crisis? …crickets…

It’s my birthday month so how about a Google search that combines two of my favorites, “GIS and birthday.” And what do you know, this 2014 review paper by Zandbergen looks at the confidentiality of highly-sensitive health information in the context of GIS, for example birth dates (okay not exactly birthday). While the review found more work needed to be done in the field, a quick search of the topic did not reveal any recent major advances which is surprising giving the prevalence of HIPAA concerns.
Last month we checked out the robust online GIS resources of Pennsylvania’s second largest city, Pittsburgh, and for April we move north to a much smaller town, Warwick, Rhode Island, for our review.
Warwick, RI GIS Website
Warwick, RI GIS Contacts (sorry not a direct contact but GIS appears to be a part of the Assessor’s office)
Warwick, RI GIS Web Map
Warwick, RI GIS Map Collections (click on the Tax Maps tab at the top left, not an ideal collection but it’s all I could find)
Warwick, RI GIS Direct Downloads (no direct download exists, try calling the Assessor’s office for assistance)