Carbon Emissions From the Mega Cities of the World

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The Three-dimensional Structure of NeoArchean Microbialites

Unraveling the three-dimensional morphology of Archean microbialites

Authors:

Juarez Rivera et al

Abstract:

Fenestrate microbialites from the 2521±3 Ma Gamohaan Formation, South Africa, are composed of calcite with traces of kerogen that represent the remains of ancient microbial mats. To delineate the 3-D geometry of these microbialites, specimens were serial-sectioned; sequential slices were polished in 120 μm increments and scanned to yield an image stack, which was rendered into a virtual model of the microbialites. The resulting virtual representation allowed for visualization and characterization of microbial growth geometries that were not visible from 2-D surfaces. Several new insights into the structure of microbialites emerged from characterizing their 3-D structure including the recognition of two new features, linear structures and tubular structures. The long, thin nature of these structures makes them difficult to identify in two dimensions. However, in three dimensions, they can be traced as thin ropes of fossilized microbial communities emerging from more typical microbial mat structures. Overall, these results demonstrate a new set of microbial features in the Gamohaan Formation that were only characterized by reconstructing the full geometry of the microbialites in three dimensions.

Data Mining Mt GOX Bitcoin Transactions

When hackers posted 750 megabytes of data pilfered from the bankrupt bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, many people seized on it as a kind of treasure map, hoping it would help locate the nearly half a billion dollars in digital currency that went missing from the exchange.

But not Kai Chang and Mary Becica.

Chang is a design technologist at San Francisco visualization studio Stamen Design, and Becica is a product manager at cloud management outfit AppDirect, also in San Francisco. Both love to geek out on data. When the Gox data was released into the wild, they weren’t interested in finding the allegedly stolen bitcoins. They went looking for patterns in the way the digital currency was flowing across the net. The result is a set of some 500 visualizations that show the activity of the 500 Gox accounts that traded the most bitcoin, a graphical representation of the exchange that shows how it progressed from a casual trading table for a small group of cryptocurrency enthusiasts to a hyper-speed market dominated by fairly sophisticated traders. “As you get later in the data,” Chang says, you see the development of “more consistent techniques.”

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An Animation of the Asteroids of the Solar System

Saved (not quite) by a Watery Pseudopod

Flying Over Titan's Lakes & Seas

NOAA Graphics of the Tsunami Wave Height

Thoughts and prayers with the survivors. The bits I have had time to read have been devastating emotionally.