Fox 4: Kansas City’s famous rose garden goes high tech to celebrate 90th anniversary. “Visitors to the rose garden in Loose Park may notice something new as they stop to smell the flowers. The Kansas City Rose Society launched a new website that categorizes every variety in the garden by name, color and classification.”
CBC: Why an Italian museum unleashed bacteria on Michelangelo’s marble masterpieces. “When it came time to clean sculptures by Michelangelo at the Medici Chapels in Florence, Italy, conservators knew they needed a new approach. For nearly a decade, teams have been working to clean the marble works in the New Sacristy — searching for solutions that wouldn’t damage the fragile stone Michelangelo worked with to sculpt the room’s elaborate tombs. So rather than applying chemicals or using abrasives, the experts made a ‘bold decision’ to use bacteria-infused gel to clean away centuries worth of dirt and grime.”
Backstage: Exclusive: Years of Theater Diversity Data Now Housed in 1 Place With Launch of Counting Together Website. “What is the racial and ethnic makeup of actors hired in theater? How many female playwrights have been produced on Broadway? Previously, if a person wanted the answer to those questions, they would have to use Google and ask other industry professionals. Now, a new website called Counting Together is gathering theater industry reports around gender, race, and disability in theater dating back to 2006 and putting them in one place.”
Liam O’Dell: Hey Twitter, where are all the verified disabled people?. “I had already written about my hopes that impersonation would be an important factor for consideration when it comes to verification (after another account chose to impersonate me once I called out ableism), but in a Twitter Space on 4 June, an employee from Twitter’s trust team revealed that ‘impersonation is not something we’re taking into consideration’. This is despite the fact that this act of malice is often deployed against marginalised creators. Up until this point, this article may read as an exercise in self-pity, except it soon became clear that I wasn’t the only disabled person who had had their verification request rejected.”
Arab News: Fraudulent ad promoters on social media could face hefty fines, jail in Saudi Arabia. “Those who promote and advertise fraudulent goods on social media sites have been warned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Prosecution that they could face up to three years in prison or a SR1 million ($267,000) fine, or both.”
NPR: Welcome To Froggyland, The Croatian Taxidermy Museum That May Soon Come To The U.S.. “The sounds of a lily pad pond piped through outdoor speakers greet visitors. Inside, it’s quiet, because the 507 frogs on display have been dead for more than a century. But they look very much alive, thanks to the work of Ferenc Mere, a mustached Hungarian taxidermist who lived from 1878 to 1947 and spent 10 of his years catching frogs, killing them and stuffing them — before arranging them into a variety of exhibits that showed them living out human lives.”
Bird Guides: Website launched to track non-native birds across Europe. “The Introduced Bird Interaction Survey (IBISurvey) is a citizen science project from the University of Évora with the main objective of assessing the environmental, societal and economic impacts of introduced birds in European countries, with everyone encouraged to get involved.”
Muslim Mirror: An Indo-American’s pursuit for vanishing Islamic heritage sites. “Chennai: Mr. Siraj Thakor, from Toronto, Canada, has undertaken the monumental task of creating an online database of all the Islamic Heritage Sites of India. He likes to preserve it digitally and make it available to all to cherish the Islamic past of this great country. Mr. Siraj is looking for volunteers to assist him with the information on Islamic Heritage Sites in India.”
Google Blog: Now it’s easier to show what your business offers on Google. “Last year, we added ways for you to change basic business information, message your customers and see detailed insights. And now, as we head into International Small Business Week, we have even more ways for you to update your Business Profile — all directly from Search and Maps.”
Local News 8: Wyoming launches new drought resources website. “The site provides resources and information for specific sectors impacted by drought, including agriculture, tourism, recreation, municipalities and water utilities. It also offers information on federal and state resources and assistance available to those impacted by drought. Information on wildfire conditions and restrictions plus links to United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) drought disaster designations for Wyoming are also available on the website.”
Getty: How Getty Archivists Support Racial Justice. “As archivists at the Getty Research Institute, it’s our job to describe and organize the materials in Getty’s collection to make them easy for researchers, scholars, and historians to find. Our work largely takes place indoors, is often solitary, and far removed from the action of protests of social justice movements. But as we help shape the historical record, there is reparative work that we can do as archivists to support communities fighting for justice.”
KTVU: New tool consolidates fire information into zones for California residents. “As dry conditions lead to growing fear, a new tool is emerging to help first responders and the public: The real-time resource, called Zonehaven, is designed to be the single place for sending and receiving information during hazardous events.”
National Geographic: Virtual reality travel: is it more than just a gimmick?. “Being able to step into a 3D space, be it a hotel room or museum, natural beauty spot or city street, isn’t only a useful tool at the planning stage, but a means to augment your experience on the road, and a way to relive it afterwards. VR also offers opportunities to explore with a lighter carbon footprint and, right now, while international travel remains limited, it caters to both those hungry for new horizons and travellers seeking a way to revisit favourite haunts.”
GPS World: Earth Archive project aims to create digital twin of entire planet. “The Earth Archive Initiative is an unprecedented scientific effort to create a digital twin of the entire surface of the Earth – and everything on it. By scanning the planet’s land surface with very high-resolution lidar, the Earth Archive will create a true three-dimensional digital twin of our world — an open source, digital record of the Earth that will reflect the landscape exactly as it was at the time of scanning.”
HyperAllergic: Smithsonian Returns a Pre-Incan Gold Ornament to Peru. “In a ceremony today, June 15, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian returned a pre-Incan gold ornament from its collection to Peru’s government. The item, an ‘Echenique Disc,’ is recognized as the symbol of the city of Cusco in Peru, once the capital of the Inca Empire.”
