Erik Kemp 🇪🇺 @Erik@mastodon.utwente.nl

Ancient mastodon pictures discovered in the Amazon rainforest!

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/nov/29/sistine-chapel-of-the-ancients-rock-art-discovered-in-remote-amazon-forest

"Their date is based partly on their depictions of now-extinct ice age animals, such as the mastodon, a prehistoric relative of the elephant that hasn’t roamed South America for at least 12,000 years. There are also images of the palaeolama, an extinct camelid, as well as giant sloths and ice age horses."

Amazing!

This makes me think of one of my favourite book series, Earth's Children by Jean M. Auel :)

How much do you know about the world?

A great new tool from Gapminder, at https://upgrader.gapminder.org/.

I must admit I had about 4-5 questions wrong the first time I tried 😇

Have you never heard of Gapminder? Then you might want to start with late Hans Roslings classic TED-talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVimVzgtD6w

Did you like it? Then I can recommend buying the book 'Factfullness' by Hans, Anna and Ola Rosling!(https://www.gapminder.org/factfulness-book/)

You want to explore data? Check their tool at https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$chart-type=bubbles!

What are your favourite songs? Please share =)

In the Netherlands, there is one radio station (NPO radio 2) that always plays the top2000 in the last week of the year, the top 2000 songs on which people voted. I love it, so that's the only part of the year where I move away from Pinguinradio and Spotify.

These are my votes for this year! https://stem.nporadio2.nl/top2000-2020/share/339c2c90ad62e3be5bd503559c3f8a3de6bcedde

The Spotify playlist:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5PjNaqY28kfBEeXuGSQTHU?si=G2h8HDvFRQOvmGKHIr1y1g

Ingrid Visseren-Hamakers:
"- Zorg in, en breder dan, het groeifonds voor coherente implementatie van duurzaamheidsdoelen van de overheid in alle beleidsterreinen.
- Zorg voor een gedegen democratische controle op het fonds, gezien de grote maatschappelijke belangen van het nationaal groeifonds."

Frans van Heest van ScienceGuide, bedankt voor je stuk! Misschien nuttig om het linkje naar de Tweede Kamer-pagina erbij te zetten?

Ook de position papers zijn interessant, zoals die van Bas Jacobs, Ingrid Visseren-Hamakers, Ewald Engelen en TNO.

"TNO bepleit om het Groeifonds vooral te richten op investeringen in sleuteltechnologieën ten behoeve van de klimaaten energieopgaven; en sleuteltechnologieën op het gebied van digitalisering als kunstmatige intelligentie, data, cyber, quantum, lasersatellietcommunicatie. Deze zijn nodig voor maatschappelijke transities."

ScienceGuide: "Nederland heeft meer technici nodig en de academische wereld houdt dit nu tegen. Dat was één van de conclusies bij de hoorzitting in de Kamer over het nieuwe investeringsfonds."

Een enorm belangrijk onderwerp, en een boeiend artikel over deze hoorzitting. Dit klinkt als een mooie zitting om terug te kijken! Eens even 3,5 uur tijd zoeken komende weken. Voor de geïnteresseerde, hij is hier te vinden: https://www.tweedekamer.nl/debat_en_vergadering/commissievergaderingen/details?id=2020A04023

Ook de position papers zijn interessant:

Re-reading the great book 'The internet is broken - But we can repair it' that I received from Marleen Stikker after I won the privacy quiz at the Big Brother Awards show by Bits of Freedom (no luck involved at all :). That same evening, Marleen received the Felipe Rodríguez privacy award for fighting for internet freedom and privacy.

I'm looking forward to her lecture in the Week of Inspiration at the University of Twente: https://www.utwente.nl/en/sg/programme/2020/11/678966/week-of-inspiration-the-internet-is-broken-but-we-can-fix-it

@aral is on the left page!

Interesting read from Wageningen:

"When battling climate change and mass-extinction, not every #ecosystem should have the same priority. The study published in 'Nature' identifies cost-effective ecosystem restoration projects that have the highest impact. Read more below!
#Extinction #Biodiversity"

Explanation from WUR: https://www.wur.nl/en/news-wur/Show/Restoring-part-of-worlds-ecosystems-could-stave-off-extinctions-and-absorb-carbon.htm

Full publication:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2784-9

So conservation in Indonesia, the Philippines and the whole south of West-Africa seem very cost-effective!

The online #eudatathon finals are today! An interesting morning looking at all the finalists. There are 4 different challenges:

1: A European Green Deal
2: An economy that works for people
3: A new push for European democracy
4: A Europe fit for the digital age

So of course I have to join :)

You can find all finalists here: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eudatathon/2020-finalists

We just watched a presentation by TU-Delft spinoff Geofluxus that maps, analyses and predicts waste streams across the EU! Really cool!

Amazing photos!

Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards 2020.

More photos at https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2020/10/14/een-tijger-een-neusaap-en-een-inktvis-de-beste-natuurfotos-van-het-jaar-a4015788

It's October 10th, and yet another day that has a name: #WorldMentalHealthDay

It's exciting to only share positive stories on social media. I usually share pictures and insights from events that I have attended, or from articles I have read and found interesting.

Today, let's also share the other side. It doesn't matter what your background is, or if other people have more serious problems.

I have been depressed 4 times now, which took bites of 3-7 months out of my 27 years.

What about you?

Proud! :)

#trotsoptwente

Two interesting insights for me:
1) 44% of all pesticides sold for cotton (around the world!) are highly toxic to bees.

2) Poland (19%) and Turkey (16%) have a much lower share of HHPs among pesticides than for example Japan (52%) and India (59%). Good job Poland and Turkey!

Every once in a while I take a look at Nadieh Bremer's website for #dataviz inspiration. It's always insightful!

As it's #WorldAnimalDay today, first up is this one: Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs).

A beautiful set of visualisations to give readers insight in the sales of hazardous pesticides around the world. Who are the big players, what are their products, and which are the destination crops for the pesticides.

https://www.visualcinnamon.com/portfolio/highly-hazardous-pesticides

Greenpeace article:
https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2020/02/20/pesticides-croplife-hazardous-bayer-syngenta-health-bees/

#Mushrooms! I really enjoy eating mushrooms for lunch. I definitely hope to learn a lot more about fungi, mycelium and the amazing way fungi live in symbiosis with plants and trees.

Nice interview with Merlin "high priest of fungus" Sheldrake in Der Spiegel: https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/mushroom-expert-merlin-sheldrake-fungi-can-teach-us-a-new-way-of-looking-at-the-world-a-a3dd9530-dc15-4aa9-bb03-b23e1adc7e2f

Is there anyone else who loves eating mushrooms? :)

And did you know you can even join 'the loop of life' through this mycelium coffin? Very cool!
https://www.loop-of-life.com/

Thanks @mplammers for the great suggestion to watch the new Netflix documentary: The Social Dilemma.

It's well-made, combining a documentary with real story line to really convey the information via a story. They introduce concepts in a very clear way, and even though it might not be new for people who have already dived into the subject, their analogies and metaphors will enhance your vocabulary and reasoning about social media greatly!

I recommend it to everyone!

https://www.thesocialdilemma.com/

An interesting and beautiful explainer about the psychology behind TikTok, by growth.design:

https://growth.design/case-studies/tiktok-feed-psychology/