#desert

#desert

A Gel That Pulls Water Out of AirSurviving in a desert or a draught is often a matter of finding usable water. Some plants and animals have evolved the ability to extract water from the humidity of the atmosphere, and scientists have been working on ways we can do it, too. A new development in the process of moisture farming is a dehydrated gel made from inexpensive materials: plant cellulose and lithium chloride. The materials were combined, left to set, then freeze-dried. A thin sheet of the dried gel extracted water from air containing as little as 15% humidity. To take the water from the gel, it only had to be heated to 140°F, much lower than other moisture-extracting materials. So far, only small amounts of this gel have been tested, but if can be replicated at scale, one kilogram of the material would extract six liters of water at 15% relative humidity and more than 13 liters of water at 30% humidity. The air in the Mojave desert is usually at between 10% and 30% humidity. Even better, the ingredients of a kilogram of the gel only cost about $2. At larger volumes, the trick would be to keep it super-thin, which would require a matrix and take up quite a bit of room. Read more about this development at Gizmodo.(Image credit: Rennett Stowe) #desert #moisturefarming #gel

9,000-Year-Old Stone Age Shrine Discovered in Jordan DesertA ritual complex predicted to be 9000 years of age has just been discovered in Jordan. A joint Jordanian and French archaeologist team discovered it in the eastern desert of the country.The shrine was found in a Neolithic campsite near large structures known as “desert kites,” or mass traps that are believed to have been used to confine wild gazelles for slaughter. According to Jordanian archaeologist Wael Abu-Azziza, who is a co-director of the project, the site was exceptionally well-preserved, given its age. Everything was nearly intact. Inside the shrine stood a pair of carved stones bearing anthropomorphic figures as well as an altar, hearth, marine shells, and miniature model of the gazelle trap.Image: Jordanian Tourism Ministry/South Eastern Badia Archaeological Project#archaeology #Jordan #desert #shrine #stoneage

The Sahara Desert is Not Covered in SandPeople who live far from the Sahara Desert get their vision of it from movies. In Lawrence of Arabia or Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Sahara is a vast expanse of sand dunes. You may be surprised to find out that only about a quarter of the Sahara Desert is covered in sand! The vast majority of the Sahara is a hard surface, made up of scrubland, mountains, valleys, or salt flats.

Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2021Winners of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2021 competition have just been announced. The annual astronomy photography competition, now in its 13th year, is hosted by the Royal Observatory Greenwich and drew more than 4,500 entries, including many featuring images of distant galaxies that require the use of powerful telescopes.The overall winner of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2021 was Shuchang Dong who took this deceptively simple photo of a solar eclipse titled "The Golden Ring" shown above. Dong took the photo in the Ali region of Tibet on June 21, 2020."This place has year-round sunny weather, but in front of the annular eclipse, I saw dark clouds all over the sky," Dong said, "We were waiting with anxious minds but we were lucky. Within a minute of the annular eclipse, the sunshine penetrated through the clouds and afterwards the Sun was sucked into the thick clouds.""This image demonstrates both the beauty and simplicity of an eclipse, but also the science behind this astronomical event," noted competition judge Emily Drabek-Maunder, "Our sun can still be seen as a ring circling the Moon as it passes in front of the Sun, and mountains on the lunar surface can be seen hiding some of this light on the lower righthand portion of the image. This is a stunning achievement!"View more of the fantastic photos of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition below.#astronomy #photography #AstronomyPhotographeroftheYear #ShuchangDong #sun #solareclipse

Subpar Parks: Artist Amber Share Turned 1-Star Reviews of National Parks Into Glorious Works of ArtOne man's trash is another man's treasure. This is what artist Amber Share showed us when she made art out of dispiriting 1-star online reviews on various national parks in the United States.In an Instagram account named "Subpar Parks," Share posted her original artwork based on the reviewers' account of the parks' "unimpressive" features. For example, how someone described that the Grand Canyon was simply "a hole. A very, very large hole," that the dunes in the Indiana Dunes Park "are not that high," or that the Petrified Forest National Park was "basically a desert with some dead trees."Share's artistic venture was quite a success, with her Instagram account having reached more than 300K followers.#nationalpark #GrandCanyon #AmberShare #SubparParks