Apollo News Snippets – August 2019

It’s tech, tech, tech time as we offer up a few of the fun innovations I have seen over the past month, so here we go!
This process mixes air and sunlight to produce renewable syngas.
New turbine generator powered with low-cost iron-based waste products.

The June 2019 Temperature Departure map has lots of red on it–with large pockets of Europe, South America, Africa and Asia sweltering in record heat. Smaller pockets of cooler weather were seen over the USA, central Asia, Oceania and far western Africa.

This advance in computer memory could significantly alter how your laptop works.
From rice waste to jet fuel!
A stride forward in research on the holy grail of clean energy, i.e. fusion.
I bet you will be shocked to find out that according to the NOAA Global Climate Report June 2019 was really warm? In fact, it was the warmest June in the 180-year record with temperatures some 0.95 degrees Celsius (1.71 degrees Fahrenheit) above the average. Record temperatures were seen on all continents other than Australia. But of course, the Trump administration continues to ignore the problem…

Yep its National Oyster Day on August 5^th and in honor of this random holiday, my Google search of the month was, “GIS and oysters.” If you get lucky, you might find this paper on oyster bed restoration by Theuerkauf et al from North Caroline State University. In their research, the authors use GIS models combined with satellite imagery-derived chlorophyll concentrations from algae to determine suitable locations for restored oyster beds–I love the combination of GIS models and satellite imagery (of course!).
During July we reviewed the online GIS resources of New Jersey’s second largest city and well they were rather scant, so this month we hope to rebound when we review Las Cruces, New Mexico’s GIS resources! And well, not sure this is a rebound as much as another turnover…
Las Cruces, NM GIS Website (no true landing page, the Maps/Data link will take you here)
Las Cruces, NM GIS Contacts (it appears the GIS savvy folks are in the Public Works department)
Las Cruces, NM GIS Web Map
Las Cruces, NM GIS Map Collections (same as website link, sorry!)
Las Cruces, NM GIS Direct Downloads (yep I know these are PDFs but that’s the best I could find)