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Daily Archives: June 19, 2017

NYT – The Hidden Treasures in Italian Libraries

David Laskin – “Why go to the library in Italy when all around you there is fantastic art, exalted architecture, deep history, and intensely passionate people? Because, as I discovered in the course of a rushed but illuminating week dashing from Venice to Rome, Florence, and Milan, the country’s historic libraries contain all of those without the crowds. I hit six libraries in a literary Giro d’Italia. Not once were we shushed or told not to touch…In the madness of late spring at San Marco Square in Venice, amid the hordes pouring in from land and sea, hard by the hissing espresso machines and sizzling panini presses of overpriced cafes, I found the still point of the turning world. I found it in the library. It was 10 in the morning and I was standing, alone and enthralled, on the second floor balcony of the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana. Across the Piazzetta rose the Doge’s Palace…”

Plastic emissions from world’s rivers add 5,000 metric tons of plastic waste every day to oceans

River plastic emissions to the world’s oceans, Laurent C. M. Lebreton, Joost van der Zwet, Jan-Willem Damsteeg, Boyan Slat, Anthony Andrady & Julia Reisser. Nature Communications 8, Article number: 15611 (2017). doi:10.1038/ncomms15611. Received: 27 October 2016. Accepted: 11 April 2017. Published online: 07 June 2017. “Plastics in the marine environment have become a major concern… Continue Reading

California again tops list of states with worst air pollution

American Lung Association – State of the Air 2017 – “For 18 years, the American Lung Association has analyzed data from official air quality monitors to compile the “State of the Air” report. The more you learn about the air you breathe, the more you can protect your health and take steps to make our… Continue Reading

Trooly background-check startup purchased by Airbnb

Bloomberg – Airbnb to Buy Background-Check Startup Trooly to Root Out Scams “Trooly delivers Instant Trust™ services that verify, screen and predict trustworthy relationships and interactions. We work with the world’s largest financial institutions, peer-to-peer marketplaces, marketers and employers. Our Instant Trust rating service is designed to fill a “trust gap” caused by the speed… Continue Reading

GOP Data Firm Leaks Personal Data on 61 percent of US population

Gizmodo: “Political data gathered on more than 198 million US citizens was exposed this month after a marketing firm contracted by the Republican National Committee stored internal documents on a publicly accessible Amazon server. The data leak contains a wealth of personal information on roughly 61 percent of the US population. Along with home addresses,… Continue Reading

Shootings Now Third Leading Cause of Death for U.S. Children

Newsweek: “…Though we constantly see examples in the news, child gun injuries and deaths may be even more prevalent in the United States than we realized. A study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics showed that an average of 5,790 children in the United States receive emergency room treatment for gun-related injuries each year, and around… Continue Reading

NASA Image, Audio and Video Library

“NASA content – images, audio, video, and computer files used in the rendition of 3-dimensional models, such as texture maps and polygon data in any format – generally are not copyrighted. You may use this material for educational or informational purposes, including photo collections, textbooks, public exhibits, computer graphical simulations and Internet Web pages. This… Continue Reading

ABA’s Free Legal Answers Site

“Free Legal Answers is a virtual legal advice clinic. Qualifying users post their civil legal question to their state’s website. Users will then be emailed when their question receives a response. Attorney volunteers, who must be authorized to provide pro bono assistance in their state, log in to the website, select questions to answer, and… Continue Reading