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Published 4:25 PM EST Feb 24, 2020
If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. The Hidden is dead I've played lots of Hidden back in 2011-2014, and when i remembered it, i immediately tried to download it. The servers are down, players are nowhere in sight, and this is just heart-shattering.
Katherine Johnson, the venerated NASA mathematician who was depicted in the film “Hidden Figures,” died Monday, NASA said. She was 101.
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“Ms. Johnson helped our nation enlarge the frontiers of space even as she made huge strides that also opened doors for women and people of color in the universal human quest to explore space,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement.
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“At NASA we will never forget her courage and leadership and the milestones we could not have reached without her.”
Her groundbreaking contributions to bring Americans in space were plenty: Johnson worked on the first NASA mission in 1961 to carry an American, Alan Shepard, into space. In 1962, she verified computer calculations that plotted John Glenn’s orbits around Earth.
Per NASA, Glenn entrusted Johnson to calculate the trajectories by hand more than the state-of-the-art computers available at the time, which were often prone to breaking down.
Over the course of her 33-year career, Johnson also contributed to Apollo missions, helped the agency transition to computers and went on to win five NASA Langley Research Center Special Achievement awards. She retired in 1986.
“I loved going to work every single day,” she told NASA.
Before she began her stint at NASA, she taught at black public schools in Virginia. In her later years, she continued working with students – encouraging them to enter the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Born in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, in 1918, Johnson made history, per NASA, by becoming the first black woman to integrate the graduate schools at West Virginia University.
In recent years, her accomplishments – and those of black women in NASA – were bolstered by the visibility of the book 'Hidden Figures' and the film adaptation starring Taraji P. Henson, playing Johnson; Octavia Spencer, who played Dorothy Vaughan; and Janelle Monáe, who played Mary Jackson.
The film centered on the racially segregated computing unit at what is now the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, that Johnson and other black women worked at as human 'computers' until 1958.
'Hidden Figures' was nominated for a best picture Oscar and grossed more than $200 million worldwide. At the 2017 Academy Awards Ceremony, Johnson was brought onstage and honored.
President Barack Obama awarded her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest honor for civilians, in 2015. Two years later, NASA dedicated a computational research facility in her honor.
Most recently, NASA renamed a building in West Virginia – her home state – after her in 2019 at the urging of a congressional bill signed into law by President Donald Trump.
Contributing: Jorge L. Ortiz, USA TODAY; Associated Press. Follow Joshua Bote on Twitter: @joshua_bote
Published 4:25 PM EST Feb 24, 2020
The plastic bottles, straws and grocery bags that wash ashore on beaches are some of the most visible signs that society’s intoxication with plastic is taking a toll on the environment. But scientists say there is another source of that is just as pervasive and even more difficult to clean up — and it’s hiding in our clothes.such as polyester or nylon that are essentially constructed from thin plastic fibers. These fabrics have become fixtures in closets around the world because they are durable and cheap to make. Stretchy, sweat-wicking workout clothes, water-resistant rainwear and fleece sweaters are all made of synthetics — not to mention many T-shirts, dresses and jeans that contain a cotton-synthetic blend. “This is the microplastic pollution that we don’t talk about as much because it’s unseen, but these microfibers are everywhere,” said Sarah-Jeanne Royer, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California.
“We’ve sampled them at the North Pole, in Antarctica, at the top of mountains and — everywhere in the world.”Most microfiber pollution occurs when people wash their clothes. A in the U.K. Estimated that up to 700,000 microfibers could be released in a single load of laundry, roughly equivalent to the surface area of a pack of gum.Royer said these microplastic particles — anything measuring 5 millimeters or smaller — bypass filters at wastewater treatment plants, which means they can end up in recycled “biosolids” that are used as fertilizer or they get pumped directly into waterways. And unlike plastic bottles or candy wrappers that can be picked up and disposed of, the spread of these tiny fibers is much more difficult to control. Some in the apparel industry are heeding this call to action, with companies that specialize in outdoor gear, such as Patagonia, Mountain Equipment Co-op and Arc’teryx, leading the charge.Patagonia, based in Ventura, California, worked with researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 2014 to explore the extent of microfiber pollution. That research, which culminated in a in 2016, examined microfiber shedding from four synthetic fleece Patagonia jackets and one from another brand. The scientists found that when the garments were washed, an average of 1.17 grams of microfibers were released.
The study also found that the amount of shedding was influenced by the type of washing machine used: Top-load machines saw seven times as many microfibers released compared to front-load washing machines. This was because front-load washing machines tend to use less water and the tumbling motions are less rigorous, according to Stephanie Karba, who co-authored the study as a graduate student at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and was subsequently hired by Patagonia as an environmental researcher in 2016.Patagonia shared these results with its customers in a and recommended products that could be used in existing washing machines to collect some of the synthetic fibers from each load of laundry — akin to conventional lint traps. One such product is a reusable washing bag called “Guppyfriend,” developed by a nonprofit organization called Stop! Consumers can place their fleece jackets and other synthetics inside the Guppyfriend and then toss the bag, which retails for about $30, into the washing machine, where it collects some of the released microfibers.
In addition, Patagonia is working with its manufacturers and material suppliers to investigate ways to develop fabrics that lose fewer microfibers, Karba said. But so far, there’s no perfect solution. While organic materials like cotton are biodegradable, growing cotton uses much more water than manufacturing synthetic fabrics, and it also requires land that can compete with food production.“No matter what material you use, there will be some impact,” Karba said. “If it’s synthetic, we have to worry about microfiber pollution; for cotton, there will be some impact with water consumption; if it’s wool, there are difficulties in terms of animal husbandry. That perfect bio-based, biodegradable, nonresource-extractive material is a unicorn in the apparel industry.”Another challenge is that the science of microfibers — and microplastic pollution in general — is a relatively new field, and there are still many unknowns.“The research is so young that each study that comes out ends up answering one of 100 questions but then has 200 more questions that come up,” said Royer, the Scripps researcher. “Other subjects in science have years or decades behind it, so it’s hard to make conclusions right now.”One of the big unknowns is precisely how much microfiber pollution has already seeped into the environment. The most commonly accepted estimate for the amount of each year is 8 million metric tons.
Of that, microplastics are thought to make up an estimated 1.5 million tons, and a estimated that about 35 percent of microplastics that enter the world’s oceans comes from synthetic textiles. The next largest source of microplastics is the rubber shed from vehicle tires, with city dust, road markings, paint from ships, plastic pellets from manufacturing and personal care products making up the rest, according to the report.
Microplastics are of particular concern because they are small enough to be blown across landscapes by the wind or carried to different ocean depths by currents. This means they are virtually impossible to clean up, and these plastic particles could affect animals that unknowingly ingest them.Studies have not only found small plastic fibers in the digestive tracts of whales and sharks, but also in a variety of fish and shellfish that people consume. Experts say there isn’t enough scientific research yet to know whether these microplastics could affect human health when eaten.
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