Southern Africa
pgleick | April 27, 2016Populations around the world face many severe water challenges, from scarcity to contamination, from political or violent conflict to economic disruption. As populations and economies grow, peak water pressures on existing renewable water resources also tend to grow up to the point that natural scarcity begins to constrain the options of water planners and managers. At this point, the effects of natural fluctuations in water availability in the form of extreme weather events become even more potentially disruptive than normal. In particular, droughts begin to bite deeply into human well-being…
milhayser | December 3, 2014On Uncertain Principles, Chad Orzel counts up toward the birthday of that most holy of men: Sir Isaac Newton. Each day Orzel will (hopefully) unveil a new gem that didn't make it into his exciting new book. On Day 1, Chad wrote about the apocryphal moment of inspiration—in a bathtub—that led the Greek polymath Archimedes to first exclaim "Eureka!" And for Day 2, Orzel considers the scientific origin of art among prehistoric peoples in southern Africa. He writes, "The pigment-grinding process wasn’t a simple thing that might happen by accident, but a multi-step process, involving grinding then…