Humanitarian - Blog Posts
NASA’s Satellite Data Help Save Lives
For the first time, measurements from our Earth-observing satellites are being used to help combat a potential outbreak of life-threatening cholera. Humanitarian teams in Yemen are targeting areas identified by a NASA-supported project that precisely forecasts high-risk regions based on environmental conditions observed from space.
Cholera is caused by consuming food or water contaminated with a bacterium called Vibrio cholerae.
The disease affects millions of people every year and can be deadly. It remains a major threat to global health, especially in developing countries, such as Yemen, where access to clean water is limited.
To calculate the likelihood of an outbreak, scientists run a computer model that takes satellite observations of things like rain and temperatures and combines them with information on local sanitation and clean water infrastructure. In 2017, the model achieved 92 percent accuracy in predicting the regions where cholera was most likely to occur and spread in Yemen. An outbreak that year in Yemen was the world's worst, with more than 1.1 million suspected cases and more than 2,300 deaths, according to the World Health Organization.
International humanitarian organizations took notice. In January 2018, Fergus McBean, a humanitarian adviser with the U.K.'s Department for International Development, read about the NASA-funded team's 2017 results and contacted them with an ambitious challenge: to create and implement a cholera forecasting system for Yemen, in only four months.
“It was a race against the start of rainy season,” McBean said.
The U.S. researchers began working with U.K. Aid, the U.K. Met Office, and UNICEF on the innovative approach to use the model to inform cholera risk reduction in Yemen.
In March, one month ahead of the rainy season, the U.K. international development office began using the model’s forecasts. Early results show the science team’s model predictions, coupled with Met Office weather forecasts, are helping UNICEF and other aid groups target their response to where support is needed most.
Photo Credit: UNICEF
“By joining up international expertise with those working on the ground, we have for the very first time used these sophisticated predictions to help save lives and prevent needless suffering,” said Charlotte Watts, chief scientist for United Kingdom’s Department for International Development.
Read more: go.nasa.gov/2MxKyw4
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.
Audrey Hepburn Was Considered To Be Highly Sensitive, Talented, and a Dedicated Humanitarian
Source: ALL LA-missingaudrey:"The negative of Audrey Hepburn by Mark Shaw in 1953" Sabrina. Article: make-up-tutorial.com via Pinterest.com
Source: celfie-s.tumblr.com via Pinterest.com
Haven't we all though?
I don’t study genocides war crimes and human rights for fun. I study it bc my people have been at the foot from the very first genocide of the 20th century and previous attempts to exterminate my entire race. The fact that no one is speaking up when another genocide is at the brink of occurring to the ethnic Armenians living in Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) is mind blowing. I have to say I’m not surprised by the lack of effort - Americans, especially, are the most self interested humans I’ve met. This isn’t about narrative, this is about rapid belligerent individualism. We can philosophize all day about it but at the end - people don’t give a shit about anyone but themselves. There is rarely any altruism left in this world. As Monte said, no ones gonna fight for us, we will have to fight on our own to survive. The alternative is not an option.
@sarinezeitlian on IG for the photos
by outofthewoods
This miniature ecosystem has been thriving in an almost completely isolated state for more than forty years. It has been watered just once in that time. The original single spiderwort plant has grown and multiplied, putting out seedlings. As it has access to light, it continues to photosynthesize. The water builds up on the inside of the bottle and then rains back down on the plants in a miniature version of the water cycle.
As leaves die, they fall off and rot at the bottom producing the carbon dioxide and nutrients required for more plants to grow.
Not at all friendly reminder, a very mean reminder actually, that while we should begin criticizing the Biden administration soon, making fun of Biden’s stutter still isn’t cool. We’ve gone over this. He doesn’t have dementia, he’s not ‘sleepy’, he’s got a damn speech impediment and is trying to accommodate for it (and the times where he genuinely forgets something or fucks up— come on, everybody does it sometimes.), and obviously out right making fun of it is even shittier. You’re no less of an asshole than the conservatives who were just mocking him for it. It’s not a woke leftist take just admit you don’t care about how these remarks could effect others who stutter and go.
by Alexandra Levasseur / Facebook
Michael Jackson really was an angel sent from heaven. I’m proud to be his fan.
“No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave.”
— Calvin Coolidge
There is a long history of gassing and caging children. Don’t forget!
A love and a heart that kept on giving. Even when backs were turned against him and he was given nothing in return. One of the sweetest and STRONGEST souls I know. You inspire me daily. Inspiring me to be fearless, to love more, to give more, to be who I am without any apologies. My heart is still hurting knowing what you had to endure on this earth, but you are such a blessing to me, to so many. I thank God for you. My heart, my angel. This love is for a lifetime. I love you.
People I want to surround myself with:
bohemians, intellectuals, artists, idealists, philosophers, librarians, humanists, antiquarians, bibliophilist, cinephile, pacifists, dreamers, dancers, existentialists, cultivated persons, travellers, Parisians, introverts, vintage lovers, humanitarians, visionaries, profound thinkers etc.
NASA’s Satellite Data Help Save Lives
For the first time, measurements from our Earth-observing satellites are being used to help combat a potential outbreak of life-threatening cholera. Humanitarian teams in Yemen are targeting areas identified by a NASA-supported project that precisely forecasts high-risk regions based on environmental conditions observed from space.
Cholera is caused by consuming food or water contaminated with a bacterium called Vibrio cholerae.
The disease affects millions of people every year and can be deadly. It remains a major threat to global health, especially in developing countries, such as Yemen, where access to clean water is limited.
To calculate the likelihood of an outbreak, scientists run a computer model that takes satellite observations of things like rain and temperatures and combines them with information on local sanitation and clean water infrastructure. In 2017, the model achieved 92 percent accuracy in predicting the regions where cholera was most likely to occur and spread in Yemen. An outbreak that year in Yemen was the world’s worst, with more than 1.1 million suspected cases and more than 2,300 deaths, according to the World Health Organization.
International humanitarian organizations took notice. In January 2018, Fergus McBean, a humanitarian adviser with the U.K.’s Department for International Development, read about the NASA-funded team’s 2017 results and contacted them with an ambitious challenge: to create and implement a cholera forecasting system for Yemen, in only four months.
“It was a race against the start of rainy season,” McBean said.
The U.S. researchers began working with U.K. Aid, the U.K. Met Office, and UNICEF on the innovative approach to use the model to inform cholera risk reduction in Yemen.
In March, one month ahead of the rainy season, the U.K. international development office began using the model’s forecasts. Early results show the science team’s model predictions, coupled with Met Office weather forecasts, are helping UNICEF and other aid groups target their response to where support is needed most.
Photo Credit: UNICEF
“By joining up international expertise with those working on the ground, we have for the very first time used these sophisticated predictions to help save lives and prevent needless suffering,” said Charlotte Watts, chief scientist for United Kingdom’s Department for International Development.
Read more: go.nasa.gov/2MxKyw4
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.
Life After Isolation
I know that the blm is very, very important to report on but other major new networks, news journalists are unaware of another crisis that is taking place in Yemen. Please share, reblog these pics to get there attention ‼️.
Controlling Behaviour: The Internet, Personal Boundaries and Self Development.
Spotting controlling behaviour in people has never been as transparent to the general public as it is at the moment.
At the risk of sounding like one of those dodgy one tip to lose tummy fat web ad’s, the one big sign that gives people away is this: if a person has any thing to say about another person having had a Covid-19 vaccine or not.
Anyone (other than authorities such as the government, scientists, etc) that has an opinion about another persons vaccination status is openly displaying some fairly controlling behaviour.
Another persons vaccine status and decision on their body is really nobody else’s business but the individuals, and when I see people coming out with terms like “un-vaccinated people are selfish”, “un-vaccinated people should lose their right to healthcare”, I realise that I feel so uncomfortable about it due to how dreadful pushing an opinion on others really is. It is akin to extremism, but has another air to it that I cannot quite pin down yet.
Questioning helped get me through.
Did we have this sort of attitude with other vaccinations?
In the unfortunate divide that has been created, what is different?
I’ll tell ya what I think at least. The difference is, social media / internet use.
People do not seem to understand how the information that we take in, scrolling through feeds and streams of it, shapes our own realities drastically more than the every day user would like to think. Yes we can curate things but we only have to take a quick glance at how politics and even BTS seeped into the lives of those who otherwise would not be interested.
Many people also do not have knowledge of things like Social Contagion, Collective Behaviour and the quietly insidious effects that these can wield on our own free agency.
Boundary busting, isn't it?
Plenty of us either mindful of, just learning, or adept at keeping personal boundaries intact can remain oblivious to those boundaries that we allow to be crossed online. Just by logging into an open text messaging service to the entire globe, such as Twitter, we gladly expose ourselves to the world of almost everything, trolling, hate crime, and other shitty stuff included. Many of us are already angry about being burned by companies like Facebook, a place where almost the entire content of lives and families were uploaded without question.
They were trusted. None of us knew.
Luckily, boundaries can be reinstated, but that almost always takes a bit of a shock to the system in realising that very quietly, without our realising, our boundaries were being crossed, and we may have been taking that into our everyday lives, with some being taught that boundary evasion is okay on both sides of the coin, being the crosser or the crossed.
The question we all have to ask ourselves is exactly that, is it ever okay to cross boundaries either way, both offline and online?. Asking ourselves this question can help us see where we are in terms of personal growth and whether we really are working towards a better society all round for humanity.
Keep being amazing :-)