Novelist and UC Riverside professor of creative writing Susan Straight has created a literary map of America, collaborating with ESRI to locate and label the settings of 1,001 novels that celebrate America, from small towns and city neighborhoods to ranches, bayous, deserts, and frozen tundra. To see the selections and their associated places, see storymaps.arcgis.com/collections/997b82273a12417798362d431897e1dc?item=13

PLATO is offering a series of six-week virtual philosophy courses for high school students (only) in 2023-24: "Climate Justice" in the fall; "Truth, Opinion, and Misinformation" in the winter; and "AI, Technology, and Ethics" in the spring. The classes are free, but to be considered, students must submit applications by Aug. 31.  https://www.plato-philosophy.org/high-school-students/

This resource from the information database company LexisNexis helps students (and anyone else) learn to fact check information "like a pro": www.lexisnexis.com/pdf/nexis/Nexis-webinar-how-to-fact-check-like-a-pro.pdf

Tourism was up sharply in 2022, but ticket sales at some of the world's most famous art museums still lagged pre-pandemic levels, in some cases by more than 30%, as this geo-graphic from Statista shows: cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/30018.jpeg

The U.S. sees economic sanctions as a coercive measure short of military force. But a number of other countries around the world are looking at the West's sanctions against Russia, which include freezing access to gold and other assets held in Western banks, and wondering if they, too, might have their assets frozen or seized if they cross the U.S. someday. Some are now repatriating gold held in the West as a hedge against inflation and to reduce their vulnerability to sanctions. www.reuters.com/business/finance/countries-repatriating-gold-wake-sanctions-against-russia-study-2023-07-10/

Facing ongoing drought conditions, Spain is one of several countries looking to resurrect water-delivery systems hundreds or thousands of years old. This article is about Spain's acequias system, an extensive network of canals originally built by the Moors to deliver water from the mountains to communities across southern Spain. www.nytimes.com/2023/07/19/world/europe/spain-drought-acequias.html

Timed for release the same day as the Hollywood movie "Oppenheimer," a new study finds that nuclear radiation from the July 16, 1945 U.S. nuclear test, code named "Trinity," was "much stronger than anticipated. ... [The mushroom] cloud and its fallout went farther than anyone in the Manhattan Project had imagined in 1945. Using state-of-the-art modeling software and recently uncovered historical weather data, the study’s authors say that radioactive fallout from the Trinity test reached 46 states, Canada and Mexico within 10 days of detonation." The timelapse map in this New York Times article shows the likely spread of radiation over the first 10 days following "Trinity": www.nytimes.com/2023/07/20/science/trinity-nuclear-test-atomic-bomb-oppenheimer.html

Geographical magazine (UK) has a new daily geography quiz. (A score of 75% or better wins you a discount on a Geographical subscription.) geographical.co.uk/quizzes

With donors on vacation, blood supplies tend to dip in the summer. This map shows the statistically dominant blood type in each country: cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/28156.jpeg

Despite being slated to host the BRICS summit next month, Johannesburg, South Africa's largest city, is inching ever closer to chaos.  Almost half the population is unemployed.  The power won't stay on, in no small part because of looting of the electrical infrastructure.  Corruption is rife while crime, petty and organized, has soared. www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-06-16/south-africa-s-crime-chaos-and-corruption-make-it-look-like-a-failed-state

As extreme heat grips much of the world, Death Valley, CA seems to have set a new record: its midnight temperature was measured at 120°F.  The low a few hours later was measured at 105°F, which would also be a record if confirmed. www.newscientist.com/article/2382959-death-valley-may-have-just-had-the-hottest-recorded-midnight-ever/

California is the green-energy state, right? Actually, Texas significantly outperforms California in the production of electricity from wind and solar: i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/73928045cb552a9fba511ccc35840123.png (Geo-graphic from Quartz.)

The New York Times runs an ethics column each week in the Sunday magazine in which New York University philosophy professor Kwame Anthony  Appiah responds to readers' ethics questions. Two of the questions from last Sunday's magazine dealt with the ethics of allocating and reselling a scarce commodity, Taylor Swift tickets :-). www.nytimes.com/2023/06/30/magazine/taylor-swift-eras-tour-tickets-ethics.html and www.nytimes.com/2023/07/05/magazine/concert-ticket-resale-ethics.html

The Powerball lottery is nearing a $1 billion jackpot. If you are interested in learning more about probability in the context of Powerball before you buy a ticket, this short (90-sec.) video explains how to calculate your odds of winning: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohjy5gO2txc

Students who have taken my "Your Future World: Human Geography 2050" class will be familiar with the demographic shifts highlighted in this graphic, based on UN data and forecasts, that will shape the world in which they live. www.statista.com/chart/29853/the-worlds-most-populous-countries-since-1950 (I expect to teach "Your Future World" online for the first time in Spring 2024.)

Foreign policy think tanks throughout Washington, DC, host dozens of free programs, open to the public, every week on hot topics in international affairs. Tomorrow, for example, the Wilson Center is doing a free webinar (9:30-10:30 ET) on how glacier loss is threatening agriculture in both the U.S. and China. For more information or to register, see us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_6fVulOQGS2CM1MQmGRfjyg#/registration

Indonesia has about 14,000 islands, and Bali is often thought of as the "party island." Because the windy season begins in July each year, one of Bali's key festivals during July and August is the Bali Kite Festival. Kite making and kite flying play an important role in Balinese Hindu culture, and these kites are BIG: up to 10m long and 4m wide, with tails that can exceed 100m! www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/color-and-magic-fill-balis-skies-with-the-return-of-a-beloved-kite-festival

All 50 U.S. states and all 13 Canadian provinces and territories have an official bird.  The maps in this article from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology instead re-imagine the bird of each state and province/territory based on eBird data: which bird is most likely to make the state its primary home? Instead of the Baltimore Oriole, for example, Maryland might want to consider the Seaside Sparrow because more than 13% of the global population of Seaside Sparrows breeds in Maryland. Virginia would trade the Northern Cardinal for the Acadian Flycatcher because, during breeding season, Virginia has a higher density of Acadian Flycatchers than any other state. Louisiana would keep the Brown Pelican because 37% of the world's Brown Pelicans breed in Louisiana. www.allaboutbirds.org/news/a-modest-proposal-can-ebird-help-choose-better-state-birds-part-1/#

Have a question for Jesus but maybe feel like you need a direct line? You can ask AI Jesus on Twitch. Ask_Jesus describes itself as "an experimental channel allowing viewers to ask questions to an AI trained after Jesus and the teachings of the bible. Whether you're seeking spiritual guidance, looking for a friend, or simply want someone to talk to, you can join on the journey through life and discover the power of faith, hope, and love." AI Jesus treats all questions (no matter how patently silly) with nonjudgmental calm and thoughtfulness, which some users find comforting, even inspiring.  Not surprisingly, religious leaders are not a fan of AI Jesus.  Even though Ask_Jesus has been trained on Christian scripture, some researchers have also warned that, because artificial intelligence adapts based on interactions with humans, Ask_Jesus (or whatever comes next) could be corrupted over time by the AI's interactions with users, which could take "followers" in a somewhat, or dramatically, different direction. You can check it out for yourself at www.twitch.tv/ask_jesus

If you are going camping with kids this summer, the National Park Service has a special Junior Ranger program on space technology, which includes a "space tech in your campsite" module:   www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/junior_ranger_space_tech_explorer_tagged.pdf

This map shows the peak range of woolly mammoths using both a Fuller or Dymaxion map projection and a conventional (Mercator-like) map projection. Buckminster Fuller created the Dymaxion projection in the 1940s to better preserve the sizes and shapes of landmasses. brilliantmaps.com/woolly-mammoths

Because many social media platforms remove graphic content, often with the help of AI, images of human rights abuses that might otherwise serve witness and aid prosecution are being removed without being archived, according to the BBC (UK).  www.bbc.com/news/technology-65755517

This year is seeing a strong return to El Niño weather patterns, which is proving to be particularly damaging to Peru: higher-than-usual temperatures and rainfall are fueling a dengue fever outbreak, which has resulted in more than 140,000 cases of "bone-break fever" already this year. During the last El Niño cycle, Peru's GDP dropped about 10%.  Although the problem might be worse for coastal countries like Peru, the impacts of El Niño are felt globally: in the U.S., economists have found the last couple of El Niño cycles are thought to have resulted in a 3% decline in what GDP would have otherwise been: www.cbc.ca/news/health/peru-dengue-el-nino-1.6875012

A topographic map of California quickly reveals the Central Valley, a broad valley that runs nearly the length of California, from north of Sacramento to south of Bakersfield. Today, that is some of the U.S.'s most productive agricultural land. But historically it has also been a lake, filled to a depth of three feet or more following years with abundant rain or snowfall, like this year. In the southern basin of the Central Valley was Tulare Lake, once the biggest body of freshwater west of the Mississippi River. With snow melting in the mountains this spring, Tulare Lake has reemerged, with more than 150 square miles of lake bed refilling to submerge farms, roads, homes, electrical transformers, and anything else that might have been there: www.nytimes.com/2023/06/25/us/california-storms-tulare-lake.html.

Less than two weeks after the U.S., Canada, and other countries spent untold time and money trying to rescue tourists trying to visit the Titanic, Virgin Galactic sold 800 tickets to take tourists to the edge of space.  Two hundred of these tickets reportedly went for $450,000 each.  Now some people are beginning to ask, "Who should pay for rescue efforts when wealthy adventure travelers run into trouble?"
apnews.com/article/titanic-tourist-sub-passengers-cost-ee2a6358b36e48326b3977090fd9311b