What We All Need To Understand About AI In A Nutshell:

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bl7-9QZgea_/

“The State of  Archaeology”

Such a scary title right? Well, boy oh boy do I have an adventure for you today.

So, I was at a really bougie historic preservation conference because my bosses were presenting. The last panel I went to was supposed to cover the kinds of issues with Cultural Resource Management (CRM) the state was coming across. 

They ended up talking about how all of this would kind of be fixed if we had more funding from the state and more robust laws surrounding archaeological materials.

But this was a room of basically only archaeologists, and mostly professional archaeologists over the age of 35. We were in such an echo chamber. I was the only “young” student there.

SO. I start getting pissed because the same people just kept practically saying “but HOW do we fix our funding problem, we have such AWESOME sites.” “oh, the public is definitely a vital piece to archaeology” but no one was saying the (what I thought was) obvious.

TL;DR If archaeologists want to fix their problems, they need to DO something about it instead of sitting in an echochamber. WE need to make sure the public knows what we do, and more importantly, WHY it matters. We need to make sure the information we disseminate is not just for ourselves in the present, but for the public, for EVERYONE, and for everyone in perpetuity.

it is absolutely my kind of thing. so much work, such intricate pieces! I would’ve loved to be on the team that put this together.

Creepy or adorable? Researchers at Harvard University have demonstrated the first autonomous, untethered, entirely soft robot: the octobot.

Instead of being controlled by electronics, the robot’s logic board is powered by chemical reactions and fluid passing along tiny channels. Scientist have struggled to create completely soft robots because rigid components like circuit boards, power sources and electronic controls are difficult to replace.  

Learn more about the octobot and soft robotics here and see the full study published in Nature here.

Videos Credit: Harvard SEAS/Image Credit Lori Sanders

Sea otters rebound but struggle to regain historic range

MOSS LANDING, Calif. (AP) — While threatened southern sea otters bob and sun in the gentle waves of this central California estuary, wildlife experts up and down the West Coast ar

Southern sea otter recovery has come a long way, but there’s still work to be done. 🐾

Laser scanning reveals 'lost' ancient Mexican city 'had as many buildings as Manhattan'

Groundbreaking lidar scanning reveals the true scale of Angamuco, built by the Purépecha from about 900AD

LiDAR continues to aid archaeologists by mapping ancient settlements in the Americas from the sky. Check out Dr. Fishers recent LiDAR research:

retweet if youre a hoe for space

Back from Florida. Time to scare the boyfriend!

Flyover of Jupiters North Pole in Infrared via NASA https://ift.tt/2EM34s1