- It’s been a whole month since our last list of amazing technological advancements so I am sure you are ready for this month’s equally amazing list!
A step towards low-energy use quantum computing.
This research could double solar cell efficiency.
Offsetting carbon dioxide in cement with carbonated water.
This battery is low-cost and fast charging, plus its made from abundant sodium.
This battery can stretch up to 10 times its original length.
Magnetic computer memory that is compact and fast.
Bacteria can clean up some forever chemicals.
New method to extract rare earth metals from discarded electronics.
Styrofoam can now be recycled into components for electronics.
In the future, batteries could be made from common rocks.
- The NOAA Global Climate Report for June 2024 has been released by the National Centers for Environmental Information and reveals further proof that global Climate Change remains a concern. The June global surface temperature was the warmest June on record and the 48th consecutive June since 1977 where temperatures were above the 20th Century average. Record-warm June temperatures covered large parts of Africa, parts of southern Europe, Southeast Asia, and much of the northern two-thirds of South America. The record-warm June temperatures, which were a continuation of record warmth throughout the first half of the year in large parts of South America, contributed to early and expansive drying of the Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetlands. This led to a record start to the fire season, with more than 2,500 wildfires reported in the Pantanal in June, the most ever for the month since records began in 1998, and more than six times the number in the same month of 2020, which was the most active fire year on record for the Pantanal.
- On August 6, 1945, during World War II (1939-1945), an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion immediately killed an estimated 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure. Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Japan’s Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s unconditional surrender in World War II in a radio address on August 15, citing the devastating power of “a new and most cruel bomb.” Our Google search of the month, “GIS and Hiroshima Day,” turned up different ways to learn more about what happened August 6th. The GIS Maps of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial offers four maps that show the memorial with the nearest river, city, topographic relief and satellite imagery. UNESCO provides data of all world heritage sites; ArcGIS provides data of administrative areas and coastal lines of Japan; CGIAR-CSI provides elevation data; and Bing provides satellite imagery as well. There’s also a GIS-based model studying urban heat island mitigation that focused on Hiroshima. There also have been several studies over the past 78 years focusing on the health effects of radiation conducted in Hiroshima, with the latest pulling from a variety of maps. There also are interactive maps that educate people about the Hiroshima explosion and how the height of the explosion and its effects are linked.
- We took a look at the online GIS resources for Aberdeen, South Dakota last month. This month, we’re heading over to Knoxville, Tennessee, which sits on the Tennessee River in eastern Tennessee. In downtown, the Market Square District features 19th Century buildings while the Museum of East Tennessee History features a glimpse of the past with their interactive exhibits, regional art, textiles and Civil War artifacts. In fact, James White’s fort, built by the Revolutionary War captain, includes the reconstructed 1786 log cabin that served as Knoxville’s first permanent building. As the county seat of Knox County, Knoxville is the state’s 3rd most populous city after Nashville and Memphis and the first capital of Tennessee. We found an easy-to-navigate, resource-filled GIS website linked below for you to check out below but it does lack GIS downloads:
Knoxville, TN, GIS Website
Knoxville, TN, GIS Contacts
Knoxville, TN, GIS Web App
Knoxville, TN, GIS Map Collections
Knoxville, TN, GIS Direct Downloads (bad news, it’s not free)
Brock Adam McCarty
Map Wizard
(720) 470-7988
brock@apollomapping.com
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