NASA/USGS’s Landsat program has compiled the longest continuous space-based record of Earth’s land in existence. The data is used to make informed decisions about Earth’s resources and environment.
Just for fun, Landsat created a tool by which you can enter your name — or any other word — and see it spelled out in images of Earth. Hovering over the picture tells you where in the world the picture is from with a link to more information.
I made it spell out Stevland: S is Rio Chapare, Bolivia; T is Lena River Delta, Russia; E is Breiðamerkurjökull Glacier, Iceland; V is Padma River, Bangladesh; L is Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada; A is Lake Guakhmaz, Azerbaijan; N is Yapacani, Bolivia; D is Lake Tandou, Australia.
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If you’re looking for a rock-hard science fiction novel, The Mary Sue has ten suggestions. One of them is Semiosis:
“Do you ever feel like your houseplants could be watching you? That maybe they’re more aware of their surroundings than their innocent, leafy, seemingly helpless without you watering them bodies would have you believe? Sue Burke’s Semiosis will justify all of your paranoid plant musings, turning them into scientific reality! The novel concerns a group of crash-landed astronauts, who begin to believe that the plants on their new alien planet home have more to them than meets the eye. The novel is a deep down dig into the roots of botanical science, and is chloro-filled with all the real life ways that plants are evil psychopaths. Seriously, Earth’s plants are murdery enough, but sentient planet-ruling plants from beyond the stars? Diabolical.”
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Dragonfly.eco calls itself “an exploration of eco-fiction, blowing your mind with wild words and worlds.” It just interviewed Cristina Jurado about her novella ChloroPhilia, which I translated from Spanish into English. Cristina currently lives in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and she explains how living there with its “insidious, powerful” sandstorms and hostile heat helped her create the story’s setting.
Semiosis 