Creativity

Blog by Joanna Chin, Doctoral Student, York University-Environmental Studies

After testing 5 captive ravens, a team of Swedish researchers at Lund University believe this clever corvid species considers the future. According to this Guardian article, the ravens completed a series of tests centered on two tasks not typical in the wild. Not only did they learn how to use tools but also figured out how to barter with humans. In one experiment, they determined which tool could be dropped down a tube to release a tasty treat.

One of the challenges of analysing textual data in the social-sciences or humanities is that data often requires a binary categorization: does it fall into this box, or that box? This can be a tough call to make, especially when working with data that needs that extra bit of context to be interpreted. And if your data set is too huge to be read through with that level of care, you might want to use a computer to answer some quick questions and give you the gist of it (by making a word cloud, for instance).

Earth is 4.5 billion years old. Mankind is 140,000 years old. If condensed into 24 hours, then humans have been alive for just 3 seconds. And look at all that we have done to our planet. We have “covered our ears to mother nature’s screams and closed our eyes to her help wanted signs”. Watch Prince Ea’s mesmerizing monologue and fact-filled rhymes pleading for the world to come together to ensure we make it to the fourth second. 

“Learning is the only way to turn failure into success.”

Support is making a splash at the 2017 Venice Biennale. This monumental sculpture, crafted by artist Lorenzo Quinn, depicts giant ceramic hands reaching from the Grand Canal in Venice to brace the Ca’ Sagredo Hotel.

Women for Nature, a philanthropic initiative with Nature Canada, just launched the Young Nature Leaders Grant. In celebration of Canada 150, they invited young Canadians to submit projects that “celebrate the role that nature plays in Canadian culture and identity”.

 J Henry Fair doesn’t really consider his mesmerizing aerial photographs art. He sees them as documents or intricate studies that tell a complete story about the things we take for granted on our planet.

Do you love data visualization as much as we do? Enjoy these ten TED-compiled Hans Rosling talks with animated statistics about the world’s population, put together after Rosling’s death in February.

A museum that celebrates the founding of the coal mining industry in a small town in Southeast Kentucky will soon be powered by clean, renewable energy. Owned by Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College, The Kentucky Coal Mining Museum has ironically found a new way to cut down costs: solar energy.