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https://nerdist.com/article/yellowstone-old-faithful-could-stop-erupting-climate-change/
There’s been a lot of depressing scientific speculation about the impact climate change will have on Earth this century. Now, in another bleak study, scientists say Old Faithful, Yellowstone National Park’s beloved geyser, may cease to erupt in the next several decades thanks to Earth’s shifting climate. And while this won’t necessarily happen, having global warming snuff out a natural feature that literally represents reliability seems like it’d be a bad omen.
Earther reported on the study that the authors recently published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. In the study, the scientists aimed to determine just how reliable Old Faithful has been in the past.
In order to make this determination, the team radiocarbon dated ancient wood found near the geyser in the ’50s. The wood’s close proximity to the geyser signaled to scientists that trees must have once grown near it. That’s something trees are unable to do now thanks to Old Faithful’s constant expulsions of hot, alkaline water.
Nothing says "First Day of Winter" like an eruption of Old Faithful. Video: Ranger Orville Bach/Yellowstone National Park pic.twitter.com/umNeNGMiRU
— WeatherNation (@WeatherNation) December 22, 2016
“When I submitted the samples for radiocarbon dating I didn’t know whether they would be hundreds or thousands of years old,” Shaul Hurwitz told Science Magazine. Hurwitz, a geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and lead author of the study, added that it was an ‘aha!’ moment when all of the specimens dated back to within a hundred-year period during the 13th and 14th centuries.
The reason this was an epiphany for Hurwitz is because that period coincided with a series of severe droughts. Ones that took place in the region over multiple decades. Hurwitz and his colleagues specifically note the petrified wood dates back to a period after the Medieval Climate Anomaly and before the so-called Little Ice Age.
Now, Hurwitz and his colleagues say the region in which Old Faithful blows is again under threat from droughts. The study says climate models “project increasingly severe droughts by mid‐21st century,” which could lead to Old Faithful’s eruptions becoming less frequent, or ceasing altogether. This would be the case because boiling water underground, heated by magma and kept liquified by intense pressures, is responsible for Old Faithful. (When the water becomes hot enough to vaporize, it triggers an eruption through the geyser’s vent.)
Unfortunately, other geologists who spoke with Science Magazine say the projections this study makes are reasonable. And losing this iconic geyser would be an extraordinary shame, of course. Because Old Faithful, which can rocket water up to 180 feet into the air every 90 or so minutes, never ceases to blow people away.
Featured Image: Yellowstone National Park
The post Climate Change May Wipe Out Yellowstone’s Old Faithful appeared first on Nerdist.
There’s been a lot of depressing scientific speculation about the impact climate change will have on Earth this century. Now, in another bleak study, scientists say Old Faithful, Yellowstone National Park’s beloved geyser, may cease to erupt in the next several decades thanks to Earth’s shifting climate. And while this won’t necessarily happen, having global warming snuff out a natural feature that literally represents reliability seems like it’d be a bad omen.
Earther reported on the study that the authors recently published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. In the study, the scientists aimed to determine just how reliable Old Faithful has been in the past.
In order to make this determination, the team radiocarbon dated ancient wood found near the geyser in the ’50s. The wood’s close proximity to the geyser signaled to scientists that trees must have once grown near it. That’s something trees are unable to do now thanks to Old Faithful’s constant expulsions of hot, alkaline water.
Nothing says "First Day of Winter" like an eruption of Old Faithful. Video: Ranger Orville Bach/Yellowstone National Park pic.twitter.com/umNeNGMiRU
— WeatherNation (@WeatherNation) December 22, 2016
“When I submitted the samples for radiocarbon dating I didn’t know whether they would be hundreds or thousands of years old,” Shaul Hurwitz told Science Magazine. Hurwitz, a geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and lead author of the study, added that it was an ‘aha!’ moment when all of the specimens dated back to within a hundred-year period during the 13th and 14th centuries.
The reason this was an epiphany for Hurwitz is because that period coincided with a series of severe droughts. Ones that took place in the region over multiple decades. Hurwitz and his colleagues specifically note the petrified wood dates back to a period after the Medieval Climate Anomaly and before the so-called Little Ice Age.
Now, Hurwitz and his colleagues say the region in which Old Faithful blows is again under threat from droughts. The study says climate models “project increasingly severe droughts by mid‐21st century,” which could lead to Old Faithful’s eruptions becoming less frequent, or ceasing altogether. This would be the case because boiling water underground, heated by magma and kept liquified by intense pressures, is responsible for Old Faithful. (When the water becomes hot enough to vaporize, it triggers an eruption through the geyser’s vent.)
Unfortunately, other geologists who spoke with Science Magazine say the projections this study makes are reasonable. And losing this iconic geyser would be an extraordinary shame, of course. Because Old Faithful, which can rocket water up to 180 feet into the air every 90 or so minutes, never ceases to blow people away.
Featured Image: Yellowstone National Park
The post Climate Change May Wipe Out Yellowstone’s Old Faithful appeared first on Nerdist.
Gentrification is a jarring circumstance that’s been permeating major American cities, more particularly Black communities, for decades. The act of changing the character of a neighborhood via affluent residential and demographic shifts yields a different kind of culture shock, especially when one returns to so much change in their hometown after leaving. Cultural landmarks and people that once had a distinct presence are now starkly different than what memory communicates.
Washington, D.C. is no stranger to this continued erasure. The National Community Reinvestment Coalition revealed in its latest study that although the nation’s capital is ranked 13th on the list of “most intensely gentrified” cities from 2013 to 2017 (a drop from ranking first from 2000 to 2012), gentrification remains intense, as community organizations argue the rapid development D.C. has endured continues to push low-income residents out of their communities.
D.C. natives have turned to the arts to respond to the increased conflicts caused by gentrification, even utilizing go-go music with last year’s #DontMuteDC movement.
Merawi Gerima directing Obinna Nwachukwu (who plays Jay) in RESIDUE | Photo credit: ARRAYMerawi Gerima, D.C.’s very own and the son of acclaimed independent filmmakers Haile Gerima and Shirikiana Aina, makes this ongoing issue evergreen with RESIDUE—his feature debut acquired by Ava Duvernay’s ARRAY. “We probably wouldn’t be distributed if it wasn’t for them,” Gerima shares. “Let that explain the state of the film industry today.”
In the film, we follow Jay (Obinna Nwachukwu)—an aspiring filmmaker who returns to his native D.C. neighborhood that’s gentrified beyond recognition. While he re-acclimates with his community with the hopes of leaving with a script, Jay is challenged with alienation from his childhood friends, disturbed by the disappearance of his best friend, and unsure about how he fits in. RESIDUE is Gerima’s personal time capsule of how one navigates identity, isolation, and loss.
Just before the film debuted on Netflix, it took home the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature and the Acting Award at the 2020 Slamdance Film Festival in January. RESIDUE was an official selection of the 77th Venice International Film Festival’s Giornate degli Autori—which is where Gerima was heading back Stateside from when we touched base with him for an in-depth conversation about his film.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Can you touch on your experience capturing the essence of returning home and it not being what you remember it to be?
MERAWI GERIMA: Growing up in D.C., it’s easy to undervalue its natural beauty, the community around you, the people; the culture. Growing up, I felt that D.C. was a concrete jungle. When I left, I did tell people that I was never coming back, but it wasn’t until [then] that I really took the time to reflect, especially in L.A. The west coast is so different. When I drove back to D.C. to shoot the film, I noted the brown, arid region of the west coast and the yellow fields of the midwest, and coming into the east coast is so green, verdant, and lush—just full of life. It’s actually not a concrete jungle at all; it’s an amazing city built on swampland. In the filming of it, we were doing our best to show just that—the inherent beauty of the place and the people. The D.C. accent is so pivotal to the film.
Merawi Gerima’s RESIDUE | ARRAYYes—it is!
GERIMA: My man Dennis Lindsey plays Delonte. That man embodies Southeast D.C. and that’s critical. There’s an interesting play. Obinna Nwachukwu, who plays Jay, grew up in Maryland so he’s a step removed from the heart of the accent. And it plays well for this character who’s just coming back home—to enhance his alienation.
For me, it was such a pleasure to be working within these aspects of my identity and culture in a free way—not feeling like I had to cater to people, whether they could understand the accents or not. I just had people speaking the language period, knowing at the very least that D.C. would understand.
The film gave me a free license to go 100 percent D.C. and not look back.
Is that why you felt to include footage from last year’s #DontMuteDC moment?
GERIMA: #DontMuteDC erupted in the middle of me editing the film. The editing process took about a year and a half, so when Moechella popped off, I thought there was no way I was missing that. I went down there with a camera—all DSLR and camera phone footage—because I went to go document that to ensure it’s included in the film. Going back to the freedoms that we had, we had a nice, cinema camera while we were shooting during our main production days, but
The post ‘RESIDUE’ Is Merawi Gerima’s Salient Archive On The DC That Once Was appeared first on Essence.
Source: Dia Dipasupil / Getty
When Robin Givens found out that her ex-husband Mike Tyson had a biopic in the works, she immediately had a cease and desist sent. During her short marriage to Tyson, she claimed that she experienced domestic violence and she didn’t want to be depicted in the film nor did she want his account of their marriage to be included. Givens said that once found out about the film, she was anxious.
“I felt this drop in the pit of my stomach and was like, ‘Oh no, here we go again,’” Givens told People. “I felt like the world was crumbling again.”
Tyson and Givens married in February of 1988 and divorced eight months later. It wasn’t until 2009 that Tyson admitted to laying hands on Givens.
“I have socked her before, and she socked me before, as well,” he told Oprah Winfrey during an interview. “It was just that kind of relationship.”
Givens said after they ended their relationship, the Brooklyn boxer promised to make her life a living hell.
“I remember my ex-husband calling up and saying, ‘I’ve decided I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to make your life so miserable you’re going to slit your own throat and die,’” she said Tyson said to her.
According to Page Six, in September, her legal team sent a ceast-and-desist “demanding that Mr. Tyson cease and desist from further defaming Ms. Givens, and to put those producing, writing and/or directing the proposed Tyson biopic, and those producing Mr. Tyson’s podcast, on notice that they are to refrain from portraying Ms. Givens in a false, negative and defamatory light.”
After they broke up, Givens was seen as a gold digger who drained Tyson of millions, a sentiment that Tyson echoed. Since her image took a blow because of false accusations against her, she didn’t want to re-live that again. It’s been over three decades since their split and she said Tyson is still defaming her.
“The marriage was eight months of my life and yet he’s still saying slanderous things on his podcast,” she said. “He’s not physically hitting me anymore, but it hurts almost as much.”
If you’re a television fan and a consummate nerd, chances are you’ve watched at least one of Eric Kripke’s shows. The creator of beloved genre series like Supernatural, Timeless, and Revolution is currently showrunning Amazon’s The Boys, a wildly profane and violent take on superheroes gone bad and the regular Joes trying to rein them in.
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Kripke discusses the development of Stormfront (Aya Cash) as an antagonist, and how our current political landscape plays into tired superhero tropes.
Kripke touches on how the fascist superheroes of The Boys coincide with the rise of fascism in our country saying, “We write a lot about what frankly frustrates us. We’re living in the world’s dumbest dystopia — and we happen to have lucked into a show that is the perfect metaphor for this exact moment.”
Kripke elaborates, explaining that iconic American superheroes like Superman (and The Boys stand-in Homelander) prop up white supremacy, saying:
The myth of superheroes themselves — though often created by young Jewish writers in the ’30s and ’40s — doesn’t really apply as cleanly today, because there’s these undeniable fascist underpinnings to it. They’re there to protect white, patriotic America. That’s what they were designed to do, that’s what they do. They’re protecting the status quo. When the status quo is problematic, suddenly they become adversarial — not your hero. And I think it was written by a lot of people who at that time were trying their level best to fit in and vanish within white, American society.
Kripke continues,
“But we just don’t live in that time anymore. So the myth of the superhero taken straight, that’s where it starts to become fascist. Because they’re protecting a world that doesn’t and shouldn’t exist. Superheroes are inherently MAGA. In terms of Stormfront, there was nothing specifically personal behind it. It was just, I hate Nazis. I hate alt-right white nationalism. I hate racism in all of its forms.”
Kripke makes a strong point, one that is often glossed over in mainstream superhero content. After all, “truth, justice, and the American way” is about as pro-establishment a slogan as one can get. And what happens when the people in charge, the ones tasked with leading us, are deceitful, unjust, and beholden to foreign powers?
Marvel has touched on this theme in the MCU, most notably in Captain America: Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War. But the franchise is unwilling to villainize or tear down their own heroes. After all, these are family films, and the point is to make palatable entertainment for the masses.
Kripke is a fan of the MCU, but questions the relentless superhero-fication of pop culture, saying:
“I sort of believe it’s dangerous, not to overstate it or be overdramatic, but it’s a little dangerous to train an entire generation to wait for someone strong to come in and save you. That’s I think how you end up with people like Trump and populists who say, ‘I’m the only one who can come in, it’s going to be me.’ And I think in the way that pop-culture conditions people subtly, I think it’s conditioning them the wrong way — because there’s just too much of it. So I think it’s nice to have a corrective, at least a small one in us, to say, ‘They’re not coming to save you. Hold your family together and save yourselves.'”
He also pokes fun at the MCU’s all-female hero moment in Avengers: Endgame with the in-show “Girls Get It Done” ad campaign promoting the female heroines of Vought. It was a moment that was celebrated by some, but criticized for excessive pandering by others.
Kripke said, “As for ‘girls get it done,’ a lot of that came from our executive producer, Rebecca Sonneshine, who came in after the weekend Endgame opened. She was just furious. I saw it, too, and I was like, ‘That was the dumbest, most contrived—’ And she’s like, ‘Don’t get me started.’ She found it condescending and I agreed. So that just created for us a target, a satirical target. When there’s something really ridiculous in either superhero or celebrity or Hollywood culture, we’ll immediately go after it. It’s an easy shot.”
The Boys is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
(via The Hollywood Reporter, featured image: Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Amazon Studios)
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