Yo, this where I reblog things ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

Take a moment and ask yourself, a project like this requires a lot of time, money and dedication of resources, why would scientists dedicate that time to something that could just be done by a tree?

The answer is they wouldn't. So that means this claim requires further investigation!

This project is called LIQUID 3, and it's not meant for cities with wide open spaces, it's meant for cities like Belgrade in Serbia. These cities are densely populated and heavily polluted, to the point where pollution actually chokes out current trees and makes creating green spaces difficult.

Liquid 3 was a PhD scientists answer to these problems. The microalgae tank is intended for spaces where you either:

Don't have enough space to plant full trees, or

Don't have enough time to plant trees and wait for them to grow up.

The tank is extremely efficient when you consider the amount of space needed compared to the amount of CO2 turned into oxygen. The tank can operate throughout the winter. And most importantly, it can be quickly set up in areas that desperately need relief from air pollution NOW not in 10 years when trees are done growing. Children currently suffocating on polluted air can't wait for trees to grow, they need to be taken care of now, and Liquid 3 is one of the ways to take care of them. Depending on the species of microalgea used, a number have shown a pretty amazing capacity to pull heavy metals out of the air which is something trees can get choked up by.

The tanks aren't just tanks either! Liquid 3 have solar panels placed on top, they have lighting and mobile phone charging, and they work as public benches. The designers of it want to encourage green spaces where there's room, but where there isn't room or time, Liquid 3 can step in. Realistically, this isn't a replacement for trees. It's replacing boring metal city benches with new, cooler benches that also clean the air (and have at least some heating during the winter).

Not only that, but the microalgea that grows is native to Serbia and all that microalgea has a ton of great uses! It makes for great fertilizer, compost, wastewater treatment, cleaner biofuels and even for helping create new tanks for further air purification. They only require a quick algae divide once a month, and the produced algae can be carted off to where ever it's needed. This makes them effective solutions for areas that can't sustain complex installations.

I read an article about how some dogs are able to learn the meaning of words/phrases by eavesdropping on our conversations. Nice to have it confirmed but I do think many dog owners are of aware of that already?! Flynn appeared to learn a lot by eavesdropping. He was particularly adept at picking up on names of local places/routes. Names for different areas woodland & farmland where he liked to play but also "church", "doctors surgery" etc - places Flynn had no direct interest in but still worked out where they were, from listening to us.

I'd be chatting on the phone: "I'm going to go in the bookshop on the way home"… & on the way home, Flynn (who generally ignored that shop because it was dog-friendly but unexciting) would go directly to it & push the door open before I could reach for the handle. Or, friend would say "can you wait while I pop in Boots (pharmacy)?" & Flynn would automatically stop when he got there. Eventually got to the point, where if we were alone, I felt it was only polite to directly inform him where we'd be going: "let's go via the library!", "to the post office!" & off he'd trot.

I think the funniest incident, which was surprising at the time but in hindsight, not at all surprising, was when I discovered Flynn knew about "Greggs". Greggs is a popular UK bakery chain, which is similar-ish to Subway. Greggs is on the main street, so Flynn & I passed it constantly but very, very rarely stopped & got anything. Anyway, one day when Flynn was still young, my friend & I set off to take him to the woods. The 2 of us had a brief, casual chat: "shall we get something from Greggs today?", "yeah, OK!". Flynn was busy sniffing stuff & I didn't think he knew, or cared what we were saying. Wrong. Flynn WAS listening & absolutely DID know we humans had made a plan to stop at Greggs: the place where tasty, usually off-limits, unhealthy food was found! 15 mins later, as we got close, Flynn suddenly & dramatically sped up, eagerly pulling on his lead. I was amused to be hauled directly to Greggs…. but then… horrors: poor guy nearly smacked his face on a shut door because it'd closed early!! Thwarted!!

Us humans shrugged, decided to go on without snacks. I told Flynn "sorry, not today". He walked nicely initially but we got to the turning to the woods & Flynn stopped in his tracks. Nothing would move him. Very odd. After a long stand-off & now feeling confused (& tbh annoyed), I finally let Flynn take me wherever he was utterly determined to go. Without hesitation, he dragged me down the street, away from the woods - away from Greggs too. He dashed round a corner, over the road (at the crossing - dog knew his road safety!!). And then Flynn stopped. Right outside the entrance to the only other shop in town which he knew had similar foods to Greggs. This place was open. He was so, so, SO pleased with himself!!! Can dogs be smug? Flynn looked smug! After I finished nearly dying of laughter, I decided the clever, cheeky creature should be rewarded for his problem solving skills. Flynn got his very own sausage roll, all for himself. He had half right then & half when we got to the woods (which he was happy to go to, now snacks had been acquired!).

Just like the anti-Vietnam War protest songs that we associate with the 1960s, or the early nihilism that spawned punk music in the 1970s. But he didn’t *sound* like a punk anarchist; he sounded like a country rock singer. When he released Born in the U.S.A. people completely misinterpreted (or possibly ignored) the lyrics in favor of the tone of the music.

Politicians used his music to promote their ‘Murica Yes! brand, and he had to literally explain that that was not what he was about. He’s over here asking when we’re going to have jobs and heathcare, not stanning the politicians who weren’t helping the people.

It was also kind of a big deal that he had an integrated band, because even as late as the 1980s music was still kind of segregated and MTV was straight up racist. They refused to play and promote black artists and then claimed that were no black artists in the first place. Michael Jackson’s record company had to threaten a boycott of their white artists to get MTV to play his Thriller video.

Plus, the first black/white interracial kiss on TV was in 1968 (OG Star Trek). Also it took us until the 70s to get sympathetic gay characters on screen, and the 90s to get gay characters to kiss onscreen. And all of those firsts were met with outrage.

So keep that in mind when you see Bruce Springsteen not just playing with an interracial band, but engaging in an interracial, gay kiss on stage repeatedly.

https://www.gq.com/story/this-fucked-me-up-bruce-springsteen-singing-about-clarence-clemons

It was a story where… we remade the city. We remade the city, shaping it into the kind of place where our friendship and our love for one another wouldn’t have been such an exceptional thing. - Bruce Springsteen

It wasn’t about showmanship or rejecting bigots or anything it was just. Damn right that was one of the loves of his life and damn right he was going to kiss him onstage

It gets me a little that Bruce has had a divorce, that he’s been married twice, but he loved Clarence for the rest of Clarence’s life and will presumably love him the rest of his own

Clemons said in one interview. “Bruce and I looked at each other and didn’t say anything, we just knew. We knew we were the missing links in each other’s lives. He was what I’d been searching for.” In another version of the story, Clemons says “He looked at me, and I looked at him, and we fell in love.”

I’m having some emotions about it!

“He was elemental in my life,“ Springsteen adds, “and losing him was like losing the rain.”

Not just! I love you pure and deep and true but! I am going to love you like that in front of the whole damn world!

We have fewer narratives about taking risks and making statements for platonic love rather than romantic and supposedly it would be easier to downplay this onstage than romance and! They refused! They fucking refused! In front of hundreds of thousands of people, over the course of years! In the spotlight, in word and deed, I love you!

I mean, will you LOOK at this:

This was the pic chosen for the album cover from an extensive photoshoot, too. A few others:

Desalination is the process of generating freshwater from brackish or saltwater, usually through the process of reverse osmosis. While this can be a very useful tool in water shortages, it also has some pretty huge drawbacks--reverse osmosis requires a lot of energy, requires chemical treatment of the water, and produces concentrated brine as a waste product which can be harmful to aquatic ecosystems.