Fox and National Geographic have released the first trailer for Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, an epic follow up to Carl Sagan’s widely renowned space documentary series. Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson will host the new series, premiering in 2014. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Space.com
A first court appearance is scheduled for a well-known freelance photographer who was charged with misdemeanor trespassing after he flew a paraglider over a Kansas feedlot while shooting pictures.
A hearing for George Steinmetz, of Glenn Ridge, N.J., and his assistant, Wei Zhang, of Beijing, China, is set for Aug. 29 in Finney County.
Steinmetz was on assignment for National Geographic magazine when he flew above Brookover Feed Yard June 28. The feedlot owners say he did not seek permission for the flight.
It’s not clear if the men will appear in court because state law allows misdemeanor defendants to appear through their attorneys, if a judge agrees, The Hutchinson News reported (http://bit.ly/13F0cme ). Trespassing is a class B nonperson misdemeanor in Kansas, carrying a minimum 48 hours in jail.
National Geographic does not believe the men are guilty and retained Garden City attorney Lucille Douglass to represent them, said magazine spokeswoman Beth Foster.
Steinmetz, who has gained fame for photographs he has taken across the world while using a paraglider, was taking photographs of the feedlot from the air for a series on food issues set to appear next year. Zhang, a paraglider instructor, was waiting on the ground.
“Much discussion has ensued surrounding the arrest of Mr. Steinmetz and his employee regarding the right to air space and to take photographs,” said Finney County Attorney Susan Richmeier said in a news release. “The charges in no way are related to those two issues and focus on the landowner’s right to privacy and control over their property. The persons involved have been charged with criminal trespass and their guilt or innocence must be proven in a court of law.”
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Information from: The Hutchinson (Kan.) News, http://www.hutchnews.com
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News
By The Huffington Post News Editors
A new population of pests is on its way to the east coast, and no, it’s not aliens. According to UPI, billions of cicadas will crawl out of the ground and mate some time between mid-April and May.
The good news is that the 17-year cicadas (so named because they only come out to mate every 17 years) are harmless to trees and humans. And, thankfully, the cicadas pose no threat to our homes, only to our eardrums.
Similar to the sounds that one might hear on the Lower East Side on a Saturday night, the male insects will make a very distinctive sound as they look to, well, get it on. “Males produce this species-specific noise with vibrating membranes on their abdomens,” says National Geographic.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post
Joe Chernov/Ripetungi
…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at AOL
By The Huffington Post News Editors
The National Geographic Channel won the movie rights to Bill O’Reilly’s next book, “Killing Jesus.” On Tuesday, however, it was reported that CNN had also pursued the rights aggressively.
Sources told The New York Post that CNN president Jeff Zucker bid as much as $2.5 million for the rights to “Killing Jesus,” his follow-up book to the bestselling “Killing Lincoln” and “Killing Kennedy.” He reportedly found out about the movie from director Ridley Scott, who will be in charge of the project and who is also working on a series for CNN.
National Geographic adapted, and aired “Killing Lincoln” to huge ratings in February. The ratings reportedly spurred a bidding war for the rights to “Killing Jesus.”
By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
National Geographic, GE and the Center for Science Launch Plan It Green: The Big Switch
New Online City Building Game to Engage Nation’s Youth on Energy Solutions
WASHINGTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)– National Geographic, GE (NYS: GE) and the Center for Science, a national network of leading science centers, today released Plan It Green: The Big Switch (planitgreenlive.com), a new, free-to-play online city building game that enables players to design their own virtual city and build it into the greenest, most energy-efficient metropolis in the world. The game is part of Connect! Transform the Future, a new national initiative designed to engage, enlighten and educate the nation’s youth in a conversation about the future of energy.
National Geographic, GE and the Center for Science today released Plan It Green: The Big Switch, a new, free-to-play online city building game that enables players to design their own virtual city and build it into the greenest, most energy-efficient metropolis in the world. (Photo: Business Wire)
Click here to view a trailer of the game: https://natgeogames.sharefile.com/?cmd=d&id=9dd2cc34a36a48dd.
Plan It Green, which was created by developer Wyse Games, challenges players to test their design skills by building and customizing their own city. Players rack up points for eco-friendliness, energy production and overall citizen happiness while competing with friends and other city “mayors” for the highest city rating.
“Students learn at home and through school how important recycling and eco-friendly habits are to their environment, but Plan It Green takes these lessons a step further,” said Chris Mate, vice president of Games for National Geographic. “Through gameplay that is smart, fun and intuitive, players discover what it takes to build and run a community. By creating more energy-efficient neighborhoods, they reduce their town’s impact on its environment and create happier, stronger communities. In doing so, they can associate the choices they make on Plan It Green with choices they or their own communities make in their everyday lives.”
Plan It Green will help to increase understanding and awareness of energy issues and give players the power to make better, more informed choices about the efficient use of energy. The game is part of a growing trend that employs digital gaming to engage players around important social …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
No magazine is as well known for stunning photography as National Geographic. Celebrating its 125th birthday, the magazine has long been cataloging world culture, science and natural beauty with some of the best images ever taken. Now its 50 greatest photos of all time are on display – including some never seen before. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
By Neal Colgrass 
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Home
It might be hard to conceive now, in an era of extreme sports and ultra-light equipment, but there was a time when Americans who set out to conquer mountains engaged in a pursuit that was as lonely as it was dangerous.
But four men — Norm Dyhrenfurth, now 94; Jim Whittaker, 84; Tom Hornbein, 82, and Dave Dingman, 76 — remember. The leather boots that stayed wet for weeks. Oxygen canisters that weighed 15 pounds. The shrugs of indifference most of their countrymen gave a half-century ago to what it would take to get a U.S.-led mountaineering expedition to the top of Mt. Everest.
“Americans, when I first raised it, they said, ‘Well, Everest, it’s been done. Why do it again?'” Dyhrenfurth recalled Friday as he and three other surviving members of the 1963 expedition gathered in the San Francisco Bay area for a meeting honoring the 50th anniversary of their achievement.
The American Alpine Club is hosting lectures, film screenings, book-signings and a dinner this weekend recognizing the pioneering climbers and what their feat, captured in a Life magazine cover story, came to represent in the years after President John F. Kennedy honored the Everest team with a Rose Garden reception: the birth of mountaineering as a popular sport in the U.S.
“When they were talking about a reunion three years ago, I thought, who the hell cares about that? I figured we’d just get together for some beers,” Dingman said between interviews with National Geographic, Outside magazine and the Alpine Club‘s oral history project. “It’s turned into this big event, and I’m glad it has.”
Whittaker, who lives in Seattle and went on to become chief executive of outdoors outfitter Recreational Equipment Inc., was the first American to summit Everest. He and his Sherpa companion, Nawang Gombu, reached the top of the world on May 1, 1963, a decade after New Zealand’s Edmund Hillary and about six weeks after another climber on the U.S. expedition, Jake Breitenbach, died in an avalanche.
Memories of how close he came to his own death on Everest — he and Gombu ran out of oxygen on the summit and had to climb up and back without water after their bottles froze — infused every day of his life since with gratitude and child-like wonder, he said.
“I think I will probably take it with me into my next life, if I have one,” Whittaker said.
Three weeks after Whittaker’s ascent, two other Americans, Hornbein and the late Willi Unsoeld, became the first men ever to scale Everest via a more dangerous route on the mountain’s west side. The next day, they descended by the southern route that Hillary, Whittaker and by then, two more members of the American team, had taken to the summit.
The adventure, which included spending the night without sleeping bags or tents at 28,000 feet, made them the first men ever to traverse the world’s highest peak — and cost Unsoeld nine frost-bitten toes.
Dingman has been lauded over the years for sacrificing his own chance to scale …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News
A southern Philippine town plans to hold funeral rites for the world’s largest saltwater crocodile and then preserve its remains in a museum to keep tourists coming and prevent their community from slipping back into obscurity, the town’s mayor said Monday.
The 1-ton crocodile was declared dead Sunday a few hours after flipping over with a bloated stomach in a pond in an eco-tourism park in Bunawan town, which had started to draw tourists, revenue and development because of the immense reptile, Mayor Edwin Cox Elorde said.
“The whole town, in fact the whole province, is mourning,” Elorde said from Bunawan in Agusan del Sur province. “My phones kept ringing because people wanted to say how affected they are.”
In a news conference Monday, Elorde fought back tears as he recalled how the town took care of the crocodile not as a beast but like an “adopted son.”
Guinness World Records had proclaimed it the largest saltwater crocodile in captivity last year, measuring the giant at 20.24 feet. The reptile took the top spot from an Australian crocodile that measured more than 17 feet and weighed nearly a ton.
The crocodile was named Lolong, after a government environmental officer who died from a heart attack after traveling to Bunawan to help capture the beast. The crocodile, estimated to be more than 50 years old, was blamed for a few brutal deaths of villagers before Bunawan folk came to love it.
The giant reptile has come to symbolize the rich bio-diversity of Agusan marsh, where it was captured. The vast complex of swamp forests, shallow lakes, lily-covered ponds and wetlands is home to wild ducks, herons, egrets and threatened species like the Philippine Hawk Eagle.
Wildlife experts were to perform an autopsy as early as Monday to determine the cause of its death, Elorde said.
Bunawan villagers planned to perform a tribal ritual, which involves butchering chicken and pigs as funeral offerings to thank forest spirits for the fame and other blessings the crocodile has brought, Elordie said. A group of Christians would separately offer prayers before the autopsy.
The rites would be held at the eco-tourism park, where the reptile had emerged as a star attraction, drawing foreign tourists, scientists and wildlife reporting outfits like the National Geographic to Bunawan, a far-flung town of 37,000 people about 515 miles southeast of Manila.
The crocodile’s capture in September 2011 sparked celebrations in Bunawan, but it also raised concerns that more giant crocodiles might lurk in a marshland and creek where villagers fish. The crocodile was captured with steel cable traps during a hunt prompted by the death of a child in 2009 and the later disappearance of a fisherman. Water buffalos have also been attacked by crocodiles in the area.
About 100 people led by Elorde pulled the crocodile from a creek using a rope and then hoisted it by crane onto a truck.
Elorde’s town wanted to launch a new hunt for a larger crocodile, which he said he and other villagers saw lurking near a river shortly before Lolong was captured. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
By Tim Worstall, Contributor That would be one way to encapsulate this little story about how genes and folk tales move across human groupings. Even the normally rather staid National Geographic makes much the same point in their headline: Humans Swap DNA More Readily Than They Swap Stories And of course anyone who has seen the standard male attitude, maybe we’ll talk afterwards if I don’t fall asleep, will know this to be true. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
The Vatican has pledged to do what it can to raise awareness about the illegal trade in ivory following a campaign by National Geographic magazine to expose the use of ivory in religious icons.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, wrote an unusual and lengthy response to the magazine, correcting some errors in its reporting but agreeing that the Holy See was “absolutely convinced that the massacre of elephants is a very serious matter” and could do something about it.
Lombardi pledged to have Vatican Radio’s Africa programs report more on the fight against the illegal trade in ivory.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
A two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter has taken the first steps of an unimaginably long walk — a journey from Ethiopia to Argentina expected to last seven years.
Paul Salopek departed an Ethiopian village Thursday to begin a planned 21,000-mile (34,000-kilometer) walk that will cross some 30 borders and scores of ethnic groups.
Salopek’s quest is to retrace humankind’s first migration from Africa across the world in a go-slow journey that will force him to immerse in many cultures.
The Ethiopia-to-Argentina walk — which took human ancestors some 50,000 years to make — is called Out of Eden and is sponsored by National Geographic, the Knight Foundation and the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting. Salopek plans to write one major article a year and give periodic updates.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
The birth of Godzilla, or what is technically known as the new Nissan GT-R, has to be a serious endeavor for a creation to roam the earth basically defying the laws of physics. You probably know just about every popularized specification of the Nissan GT-R and is astonishing price-point to undercut vehicles that attempt to match its performance attributes. National Geographic takes us behind the scenes into the creation of the 2011/2012 Nissan GT-R on one of their latest Magafactories show. Enjoy the episode in its entirety below!
