Month: May 2016

A giant pacific octopus shows its colors at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. (credit: Monterey Bay Aquarium)

Over the past 60 years, the population of cephalopods—octopuses, squids, and cuttlefish—has been steadily growing. This is particularly remarkable because many types of marine life have been dying out as carbon levels in the oceans rise, making the water more acidic. So even as numbers of crabs, sea stars, and coral reefs are shrinking, the tentacled creatures of the deep are thriving.

Writing in Current Biology, a large group of marine biologists describe how they discovered this trend. Looking at the past 61 years of fisheries data from all major oceans, they examined numbers of cephalopods that are bycatch, or accidentally caught along with target fish. Using these numbers as a proxy for cephalopod populations as a whole, they discovered a steady increase over the decades, across all cephalopod species. The question is why.

The researchers say it's likely a function of a cephalopod's ability to adapt quickly. "These ecologically and commercially important invertebrates may have benefited from a changing ocean environment," they write. Most cephalopods have very short lifespans and are able to change their behavior very quickly during their lifespans. Indeed, octopuses are tool-users who can learn quickly, leading to many daring escapes from tanks in labs as well as brilliant forms of camouflage at the bottom of the ocean. All these characteristics add up to a set of species who can change on the fly, as their environments are transformed.

Sam Machkovech

Seattle's Pacific Science Center is the latest home to Nathan Sawaya's all-LEGO art exhibit.

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SEATTLE—We at Ars love a good piece of LEGO design, particularly the fare found at regional fan fests like BrickCon on an annual basis. But while those shows impress with pop-culture references and sprawling towns full of vehicles, spacecraft, ships, and villagers, they don't typically include the kinds of original work or high-art references you'd expect to see at a museum.

Oregon-raised artist Nathan Sawaya, on the other hand, has made art out of LEGOs for years—and shown it off at art galleries across the world since 2007. The artist's latest show, which we caught on its opening weekend in Seattle, continues to revolve around his original creations, which are included in the lower gallery (and will be familiar to anybody who's attended a Sawaya show over the years). But his more recent work has revolved around LEGO recreations of classic paintings and sculptures, which you'll see in this article's upper gallery.

From Monet to Munch, and from Egyptian temples to politically charged Americana, Sawaya's Art of the Brick collection crosses a ton of artistic movements off the LEGO list. You can see all of this and more at the Pacific Science Center until September 11.

NASA

President Kennedy delivers his "Decision to Go to the Moon" speech on May 25, 1961 before Congress.

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The spring of 1961 was a time of uncertainty and insecurity in America. The Soviets had beaten the United States to space four years earlier with Sputnik, and in April 1961, they flew Yuri Gagarin into space for a single orbit around the planet. Finally, on May 5th, America responded by sending Alan Shepard into space, but he only made a suborbital flight.

Few would have predicted then that just five years later the United States would not only catch the Soviets in space but surpass them on the way to the moon. Perhaps that is the greatness of John F. Kennedy, who found in such a moment not despair, but opportunity. When Kennedy spoke to Congress on May 25th, 55 years ago, NASA hadn’t even flown an astronaut into orbit. Yet he declared the U.S. would go to the moon before the end of the decade.

“No single space project in this period will be more exciting, or more impressive, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish,” Kennedy told Congress. “In a very real sense it will not be one man going to the moon, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.”

President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, in conversation with Cyrus Farivar. Filmed by Chris Schodt/Edited by Jennifer Hahn. (video link)

On a recent afternoon, I waited patiently in a generic conference room with yellow-tinted walls at the Westin Hotel, dressed in a grey suit and a tie, eagerly anticipating the arrival of Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves. My videographer, Chris Schodt, busily set up his camera and light rig.