Category Archives: Transhuman News

Homeward bound.

Best three-day "weekend" ever? That may be the question SpaceX's four civilian astronauts are putting to themselves after returning to Earth on Saturday. The crew of the historic Inspiration4 mission splashed down off the Florida coast at about 7 p.m. local time, after having orbited the globe almost 50 times since Thursday. The astronauts safely exited the spacecraft about an hour after splashdown, following a recovery at sea.

"That was a heck of a ride for us," mission commander Jared Isaacman tweeted after splashdown. "Congratulations @Inspiration4x!!!" SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said, also via Twitter.

It was the first time a crew composed of private citizens had been launched into orbit, without any professional astronauts aboard. The mission took the crew members much farther out than either Virgin Galactic's Richard Branson or Blue Origin's (and Amazon's) Jeff Bezos traveled on their recent jaunts above the planet. And the Inspiration4 trip helps solidify the notion of sending everyday people into space, for tourism, futuristic international travel and perhaps even colonization of the cosmos.

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The mission was bankrolled by Isaacman, a former pilot and the billionaire founder of a payment processing company, who offered up the other three seats to members of the general public: physician assistant Hayley Arceneaux, data engineer Christopher Sembroski and community college professor Sian Proctor (who's now also the first Black woman to pilot a spacecraft).

That's not the only historic first. Arceneaux becomes the youngest American in space at 29 and the first to fly in space with a prosthetic. The mission will also likely remain the farthest human spaceflight since the space shuttle missions of the early 2000s. Reaching an altitude of around 360 miles, Inspiration4 doesn't quite exceed the missions designed to service NASA's Hubble Telescope, which saw astronauts fly to around 370 miles above the Earth. A future SpaceX mission, aboard the still-in-development Starship, plans to take humans out where only Apollo astronauts have traveled --by flying them around the moon in 2023.

The crew spent its time orbiting the Earth every 90 minutes (about 100 miles farther out than the International Space Station); checking out the view of our planet from a specially installed glass cupola on SpaceX's Dragon capsule; conducting various science experiments; and occasionally taking breaks to play with a plushie pup (also known as the mission's "zero gravity indicator"). Physiological information about the crew was collected to assess changes in behavior and cognition, including data on heart rate, blood oxygen saturation and how well the team members slept.

The mission was also billed asa fundraiser for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, where Arceneaux works and where she was a cancer patient as a child.

On Saturday evening, Musk announced he would be donating $50 million to the donation drive, helping it surpass the $200 million mark set by the crew. Isaacman is contributing $100 million.

The successful mission is another feather in the cap of Musk and his company SpaceX, which has already shuttled astronauts to the International Space Station as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. That initiative sees the space agency working with private companies to achieve NASA's stated goal of "safe, reliable and cost-effective access to and from the International Space Station and low-Earth orbit."

In June, SpaceX signed a deal to send space tourists to the ISSstarting next year (at areported $55 million price tagper seat). And in April, NASA announced that it had selected SpaceX to provide the human landing system for the space agency's Artemis program. Artemis calls for putting the first woman and next man on the moon sometime soon -- and eventually setting up sustainable exploration there. Knowledge gained from Artemis will be put to use in getting ready to send astronauts to Mars.

Read more:Why the SpaceX Inspiration4 mission matters to everyone

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SpaceX Inspiration4 mission splashdown ends historic trip around the Earth - CNET

Outer space has always fascinated me, and there are many who believe that if things keep running the way they are on Earth, future generations might end up calling it home! The Moon and Mars are some of the alternate living options that are being taken into consideration, and as we send out spaceships to see how habitable these options really are, designers have been busy with dreaming up space homes, habitats, and even hotels that could function as viable living setups. Weve curated some of the most creative, innovative, and plausible Space-friendly Architecture designs for you! From the worlds first space hotel which will come to life in 2027 to a collection of architectural renders that explore a possible move to space through three elaborate acts Elon Musk would definitely approve of these space habitats!

This collection explores the possible future move for mankind and probably what Musk has in mind through three elaborate acts Act one: The Journey includes the meeting, the bedroom, and the dining room. It represents our trip and the hope to arrive, but also the attachments of our mundane life, carrying memories of a previous reality. Act two: The settlements show the Universe Edge, Summer House, and Landing Zone. It expresses our freedom to dream and imagine how our intergalactic holiday homes would look like. Act three: The Encounter, is based on human emotions of loving someone, missing someone, and being guided. It is all about looking inward and looking from inside, the vestiges of our presence in an inhabited and quiet place.

The California-based startup, Orbital Assembly Corporation, has designed a hotel that uses artificial gravity to keep humans grounded in theworlds first space hotel! Speaking of luxury and earthly comforts, the hotel boasts a capacity of 400 people along with amenities like a cinema, a health spa, gyms, themed restaurants, libraries, and even concert venues. I personally expect a slew of space puns and cinema filled with space-themed movies to make the experience more ironic and even surreal. The hotel has 24 modules allocated for habitation, each module measuring 12 meters in diameter and 20 meters long. The total habitable surface is 500 square meters and is spread over three floors, of which 12 modules will be dedicated to hotel rooms and suites. There shall be 3 room types 126 square meters of a luxury suite, 62 square meters of luxury rooms, and 30 square meters in a standard room.

When NASA announced a competition to design the best Martian habitation design, AI SpaceFactory came in second place with its vertical, egg-shaped structure that holds a double shell system to handle the internal atmospheric pressure and the structural stress the design may have to endure. Designed to be constructed on Mars, the design keeps in mind using elements already present on the planet, reducing the dependency of construction materials to be carried from Earth. The team developed an innovative mixture of basalt fiber, extracted from Martian rock, and renewable bioplastic (polylactic acid) derived from plants that would be grown on Mars. The design envisions individual structures instead of a communal habitat but given the area it covers, it should comfortably house more than one Martian at a time!

Architect firmSkidmore, Owings & Merrillcreated a concept for a permanent community on the Moon! The proposal consists of inflating pods that expand to make place for more and more citizens, as the population increases. They plan for the Moon Village to be the first permanent human settlement on the lunar surface. The Moon Village is being designed to not only sustain human life but to also encounter and solve any uninhabitable problems that the Moon may impose. This inflatable lunar settlement certainly has piqued our interest!

Warith Zaki and Amir Amzar plan to use the bamboo grown on Mars to actually build the first colony, named Seed of Life, on Mars. The conceptual colony design is actually a series or cluster of structures woven by autonomous robots from bamboos. The aim of the project is to create structures that do not rely on construction materials being shipped from Earth or to use 3D printing. After doing a lot of research on Mars colonization, we realized that half of the ideas would go about deploying fully synthetic materials made on earth to build shelters, while the other half is about using the locally available regolith, said Zaki and Amzar. Human civilization has yet to build anything on any other planet outside of Earth. That fact alone opens up infinite possibilities of what could or should be used. Sure, 3D printing seems to be a viable proposition, but with thousands of years worth of experience and techniques in shelter construction, why shouldnt we tap on other alternatives too?

Titled the Mars X House, its design is optimized for the pressure requirements of Mars and comes made with an inner layer of HDPE, followed by an outer covering of concrete and basalt fiber, which is finally reinforced on the outside with vertically spiraling ridges. The house is split into three zones, with their own dedicated emergency exits (the outer spiral staircase), and right at the top is a water reservoir that applies downward pressure on the building, which when combined with the buildings shape, prevents it from exploding due to the pressure imbalance from the inside to the outside.

While Mars missions are getting all the media and sci-fi attention, a trusty celestial friend is making a comeback as an option for hosting human colonies outside Earth it is our moon! Bjarke Ingles BIG and 3D-printed building company ICON is working onProject Olympus a mission to develop robotic construction for the moon.Bjarke Ingles is the Elon Musk of the architectural world, he loves to explore the impossible and has a penchant for designs that can help save mankind right from his environmentally friendly buildings to Project Olympus. Project Olympus is about finding a way to create a 3D-printed infrastructure for living on the moon using materials found on its surface.

The winner of NASAs competition to design a 3D-printed habitat for Mars is the Zopherus designed by an Arkansas-based team. The design is envisioned to be built from the materials available on the planet and showcases a settlement with rounded hut-like structures. The construction is designed to be 3D printed, without any human intervention to keep the place ready for the humans before they arrive. The process starts with a lander who settles and looks for a suitable area to start building the settlement, the lander deploys autonomous robots who gather the material for the process to start.

Texas-based startupOrion Spanplans to utilize space in a whole new way, by creating a luxury space hotel designed to open in 2022 (Im sure COVID was not featured in their plans!) Named Aurora Station, the 70 million space hotel is designed to orbit 200 miles above the earth. The hotel plans to hold four guests and two crew members for a total 12-day trip and is priced at about 6.7 million per person. Upon launch, Aurora Station goes into service immediately, bringing travelers into space quicker and at a lower price point than ever seen before, while still providing an unforgettable experience, said Frank Bunger, founder of Orion Span. The entire design will be processed by a team led by Frank Eichstadt, who is credited as being the principal architect on the International Space Stations Enterprise module. Orion Span has additionally taken what was historically a 24-month training regimen to prepare travelers to visit a space station and streamlined it to three months, at a fraction of the cost, said Bunger.

NASA scientists and the University of Arizonas agricultural department have teamed up to develop this inflatable greenhouse that can be used to grow vegetables in deep space. The result of this experiment is to sustain astronauts on a vegetarian diet while staying for the long term on the Moon or Mars. While NASA scientists have been growing crops in the International Space Station, this 187 feet design can be used for air revitalization, water recycling, or waste recycling and also repurposing the carbon dioxide exhaled by the astronauts. R. Gene Giacomelli, director of the controlled environment agriculture center at the University of Arizona states Were mimicking what the plants would have if they were on earth, and using of these processes for life support. The entire system of the lunar greenhouse does represent, in a small way, the biological systems that are here on earth.

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Space Architecture designed to make Elon Musk's dreams of living in space a reality! - Yanko Design

Forest Park, Portland, Oregon. Stlpulmsh (Cowlitz) land.

Portlands Forest Park is one of the nations largest urban forests, with over 70 miles of trails, and at least 50 shades of green: ferns, moss, lichen, needles, buds, bluish shadows to neon highlights. On summer weekends, it can be crowded. But its accessible.

Its painful to access natural landscapes as a commodity instead of a birthright, a reminder of our violent separation from the land. When I hike in Forest Park with my kindergartener, we talk about the old Choctaw ways, how our ancestors didnt have to seek out nature. We talk about colonization, and how the nahullo way is to live surrounded by fences. We talk about the Chinook and Kalapuya people, whose land were walking on, and about our own ancestral homelands far away, beyond the Trail of Tears. We talk about the myth of land ownership, how its really ownership of a piece of paper backed with police violence. And we breathe in the healing fragrance of damp earth, walk in silence to the healing babble of water at our feet. The shudder of leaves mingles with my childs healing laughter.

They wade in the clear creek, careful not to step on their relatives the freshwater snails. Downstream, the creek reroutes into an underground channel, which colonizers built to prevent runoff when they paved over a thriving wetland to create industrial real estate that is now a Superfund site. Its painful. But its healing. Its accessible. We do what we have to do in this era. Brian Oaster, intern, Indigenous Affairs Desk

To mark a notable birthday last year, I spent 12 days in Joshua Tree National Park. Friends and family came and went with cake and gifts and firewood, but the time that most definitively fed my soul was a few-day stretch when I was there alone: no agenda, no one to cook for or accommodate in any way, just days laid out before me. I watched the sunrise, perched on a ledge where the silica content of the rock glimmered when the sun rays finally hit it. I hiked the washes, stumbling one day on a heart-shaped crystal that I couldnt help slipping in my pocket. (Forgive me, backcountry ethicists.) I traversed a boulder-choked side canyon where I was almost certain I was being watched by a large cat, but I nevertheless sat down to lunch on sopressata and a hunk of aged gouda. It had been a tough year for everyone, and I was grateful for what I had and had not endured. The gift of those high-desert days was a return to unfettered time, to a sense of discovery, to the pure feeling of being alive and enlivened. Jennifer Sahn, editor-in-chief

Comb Ridge is a dramatic sandstone crest that runs 80 miles from Utahs Abajo Mountains to Kayenta. It is home to the ruins of the Ancestral Puebloans, the regions early inhabitants. One morning in early September, I stood at the far western edge of Comb Ridge overlooking Comb Wash, hundreds of feet below me at the bottom of an enormous cliff. My partner, Trevor, had planned a bike tour over the Labor Day long weekend to commemorate two close friends who passed away a few years ago. He invited a group of family and friends who knew them, and we called the tour The H2P2, or Heres to Peter and Paul. We started at this spot atop Comb Ridge where both Peter and Paul had loved to camp. From there, wed ride 150 miles back to Durango, where they had lived. That first night of the trip, I listened to the stories of two people I had never met, but to whom I now felt connected through this place and the reverence they held for it. Sarah Tory, correspondent

It was late August in Gunnison, Colorado too hot to be hiking but the dogs and our bodies needed to get out. Smoke from the California fires remained in the air but had dissipated some. The combination of those urges and that clarity took us into Gunnison National Forest, originally Ute territory. All summer wed been complaining about the Texas and Oklahoma license plates crowding our parking lots and the commute into town. The local COVID-19 rates were rising, our grocery store shelves vacant. Some out-of-towners gawked at the stunning scenery from their brand-new Jeep Renegades, nearly stopping on the road, oblivious to those of us trying to get somewhere. Then again, it is beautiful here.

Almost 82% of Gunnison County is public land, over 2 million acres. The land has been used for its mineral resources, its water, its hunting and angling riches, for ranching and, of course, recreation, and they are renowned for all these. From time immemorial, people have migrated here to enjoy the valleys abundance. After a 15-minute drive from our home, we pulled over in the Fossil Ridge Wilderness Area and piled out of the car, dogs leaping with joy. We hiked up a steep grade in the heat too steep for my pleasure but at the crest you could spy four other wilderness areas while standing in one: the West Elks, the Raggeds, the Collegiate Peaks and the Uncompahgre. The grandeur of it; how minuscule and petty I am. We hadnt seen one car, cow or Texas plate on the drive, let alone another person on our ramble. The public lands always remind me of my place. Gretchen King, managing digital editor

My friend Sierra and I made a pact when we left the Tetons: No matter what happened, we wanted to rendezvous here every summer to camp in the shadow of our favorite mountains. Pushed out by the valleys cost of living, sure, but also by our career ambitions, we clung tightly to the idea that these public lands Grand Teton National Park, the Jedediah Smith Wilderness would always be there for us to return to. A relic of times past, a place to stay grounded, a common meeting point between our new homes in Montana and Utah. A way of never really saying goodbye. This summer, after scoring highly coveted Teton Crest Trail permits, we invited friends and partners to join us. We walked through fields overflowing with wildflowers, jumped in turquoise alpine lakes, confronted bull moose near our tents and hauled heavy packs over rocky passes. On our last night together, stomachs rumbling from dehydrated pad thai and a splash of tequila, we watched the sun set and talked about exploring the same nooks and crannies with our kids someday. The pact, after all, has no expiration date. Kylie Mohr, intern North Desk

The sky darkened and the stars brightened, encouraging us along the snow-covered path as we plodded forward, skis underfoot. When we finally made it to the hut, the moon cast just enough of a glow to see Mount Sneffels towering beyond us. Spindly aspen and spruce trembled in a light breeze, and fresh snow fell from branches like glitter. I slept near a wood-burning stove next to my partner, our two dogs with us on a twin-sized cot. The configuration lasted only a few hours as my 75-pound hound stretched out longer and wider, and I woke with half my face pressed against the woody cabin wall. The dogs were relegated to wool blankets on the floor.

Caution loomed over that magical weekend in early March 2021, as southwest Colorado experienced one of its deadliest backcountry ski seasons on record. In the morning, we sipped coffee slowly, relishing the fresh air and the snow, the company of friends more there for one another than anything else. Wed come from Durango, Gunnison, Telluride and Crested Butte, for a pandemic era reunion. Sneffels was our gathering place. We skied through the trees, on hardly vertical aspects and built a ski jump in a meadow. As we used our skis to flatten and pack the snow, it grew. We shaped it until it swooped like a breaking wave and then took turns launching off it, all landing or dropping, falling, faltering onto a pillow of powder. Paige Blankenbuehler, associate editor South Desk

I was an Air Force kid, ping-ponging from the Northwest to the South and around and back again. Those cross-country journeys opened up the West; at 9 years old, I felt the world unfurling.

Grown up, Id leave the high-country winters to backpack in desert heat. I hiked until my skin was burnt to slickrock two or three weeks in Grand Canyon or the Canyonlands, back when you could go days without seeing anyone, only the signs of the Ancient Puebloans who preceded us. The planet is always and everywhere alive, but especially so in the canyons, where the very colors and curves of the stone seem to shiver and shift in the breeze, stretching and sighing as the long light travels through the day. The great stone arches inhale and exhale. Embraced by slot canyons, we spoke in whispers. We felt watched, even weighed, by the spires in the Needles; they were more alert than most geology clearly aware of us. We walked carefully, and we behaved ourselves.

Just a few months after that, a fall down a long flight of stairs damaged me, irrevocably. All backpacking ended, leaving me hurt in ways nobody could see. Until I took up my pastels again. I could no longer hike into the backcountry, so I painted what it left inside me. The Canyon Country remains. It is an ancient and holy land, and it does just fine without me; it will be there with its rocks and ravens long after I and my artwork and my ramshackle bones are dust. Bright stone and barberry still haunt my dreams, and those memories, by the grace of God, are almost enough. Diane Sylvain, copyeditor

When I went to the Grand Canyon last November, I was surprised to see how empty the park was. I had read, and written, about the crowds of Americans who had flocked to public lands as an escape from COVID, and I was fully expecting the same when I arrived. But when we got there, we didnt have to wait in line or fight for parking. There were no tour buses. Perhaps the closure of the Navajo Nation played a part, making it hard for people driving from Colorado or Utah to reach the South Rim.

One day, we hiked down the Bright Angel trail to an overlook of the Colorado River, where we ate our lunch and squabbled with squirrels trying to steal our crumbs. For a while, we were the only ones there, watching the dark green water move through the steep canyon walls. On our way back I filmed a short video message, wishing my dad a happy 70th birthday. Our family was supposed to all celebrate the milestone together back in Colorado, but COVID had put a wrench in those plans. Walking back up the steep switchbacks, I remembered the story of how my dad and his brother, Joe, two guys who grew up in rural Missouri, took a trip to the Grand Canyon in their early 20s. They wore jeans and carried a gallon jug of water between the two of them, and he recounted, with a laugh, how they had to ration their water, filling it up once at the river before heading back up the trail. There was no shade, and they had to stop at each switchback, slowed down by exhaustion and dehydration. It was one of those adventures he looks back on fondly. COVID may have taken away our time together that fall, but remembering him tell that story about that day and walking the same trail made me feel close to him and close to home. Jessica Kutz, assistant editor South Desk

A stream ran next to our camp so we listened to the sound of water all night long. In the morning, we hiked the Joe Lott trail, climbing with the river, canyon, and forest surrounding us. Mary Zachman, finance and human resources administrator

I grew up in Florida, and my first real look at the Western U.S. was a post-college trek on the Pacific Crest Trail. I have countless memories of peaks and traverses, high water fords and hilarious animal encounters. I tasted my first fresh apricot in Southern California and cried at Crater Lake, just because the water was so blue. I walked through desolate char from too-hot forest fires and had my first anaphylactic reaction, fortunately just three miles from town.

But my favorite public lands in the West even now, after being in the West for more than two decades are Echo Lake and the Desolation Wilderness. My hiking partner, Jean, and I stopped at the post office at the Chalet at Echo Lake for a resupply and befriended an older couple, who invited us to the Fourth of July picnic that evening even welcoming us to do laundry at their lake house, like family. We brought hot dogs and made dozens of friends, then slept on the mountains edge, overlooking Lake Tahoe, watching fireworks. The next day we didnt get very far, swimming in crystal-clear lakes in the Deso Gray area. I found out, 20 years later, that the sweet couple we met were the best friends of the parents of HCNs senior development officer, Paul Larmer. Small, small and magnificent world. That its on fire now is heartbreaking to me. Alyssa Pinkerton, director of philanthropy

The first time I followed the Delta-Nucla Road, it was into the fading light. My best friend was at the wheel of her Jeep. We were delighted to discover that there was a route home from my partners home in Monticello, Utah, that didnt require braving the inevitable traffic of Moab or Telluride. We hurtled through Disappointment Valley as dusk turned it into a wide expanse of monochrome colorscape. After rounding a few switchbacks, our headlights started to illuminate juniper and pion instead of sagebrush, then aspen and pines stretched above the beams. Finally, they vanished entirely into the dark cliffs off the tight turns. Her foot became heavier on the brakes as we nervously exchanged a few words I bet this is beautiful in the daylight wondering at the views her headlights weren't showing us.

In the year since that trip, I've driven the dirt road through all seasons and weather even once, in early December, when I discovered that it is not an all-season road, as three feet of snow scuffed the underside of my van. I've dodged hunters slowly taking rounding turns in their pickups as they search for deer along the horizon, cattle attempting to claim the road in addition to their grazing allotments, and weekenders speeding along the middle of the road in their OHVs. All along, I've been thankful for the shortcut to my partner at his new job. A four-hour drive spent swearing at highway traffic turned into a three-hour adventure without so much as a gas station along the way. Sometimes I even had enough time to stop for a hike at the top of the Uncompahgre Plateau. Luna Anna Archey, associate photo editor

The late winter air was damp and chilly on my cheeks, the snow fast under my cross-country skis: a little old, but still slick and fun. It was March and I was at Palouse Divide, a Nordic ski area near my home in North Idaho. The place is pretty quiet, basically just a few miles of narrow trails that cut across hillsides and through groves of towering cedars and pines.

Eventually, I came to a familiar intersection, a spot where I usually turn my ski tips left and huff up a steep slope, then loop around to the parking area. It was already late afternoon, but I wasnt ready to head back, so this time I turned right, into the woods, thinking the route would pop me out farther up the road above the car.

I found myself skiing faster and faster, trying to outrace the setting sun. I reveled in a few swift descents down the rolling trail, but as the twilight deepened, the lack of light flattened the snowbanks and ski tracks into a uniform white expanse, and I started thinking about how easy it would be to catch an edge and break a leg. Finally, the evergreen trunks a wall of black around me, I admitted that I was nowhere near where I thought Id be, so I turned to retrace my tracks. Driving home in the dark, I figured Id better throw a headlamp in my pack next time. Emily Benson, associate editor North Desk

We welcome reader letters. Email High Country News at [emailprotected] or submit a letter to the editor. See our letters to the editor policy.

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The public lands that kept us sane High Country News Know the West - High Country News

This article is not only inaccurate it is an insult to those of us in the Queer, POC and immigrant community in SF. Let me outline a lot of the inaccurate ways you misrepresented us to create click bate and cheap scandal. I hope you reconsider your release of this article which highlights your own divisive politics and q your own privelage and lack of nuance in considering identity.

A meta point: Im an immigrant, lesbian from Colombia. I work in clean tech- it means I was able to move up from being a more low income person. Stop villifying those of us who work in tech without knowing any context. Many immigrants work in tech to get visas. Queer people work in tech! You may be privelaged enough to not need to work in tech- others are not. Dont treat us as a monolith of villanize us for choosing to work in the technology sector.

District Commons is a nonprofit that owns Embassy Network, LLCa limited liability corporation that buys up and rents out residential buildings throughout the city to create a network of co-living housesa sort of minor WeWork for tech worker housing.-> This is false. DC has never prioritized tech housing; you will notice the MAJORITY of people living in houses affiliated with Embassy network DONT work in tech. In fact multiplee houses explicitly were created for formerly incarcerated folks. Also they dont own or even rent affiliated houses; its simply a network to facilitate people starting new cooperatives.

The Red Victorian, once an international peace center, hostel, and SRO for everyday travelers and working-class tenants, became an exclusive tech enclave.

-> Again false- the majority of people who lived in the cooperative likely did not work in tech.

One Embassy Network house, Agape, is a towering Victorian in the Mission District-> They are a coopertive in the SF. Cooperatives become friends. but No Agape is not a Embassy Network house. This is just inaccurate.

Embassy Network, as much as it functions to provide housing, also seems to exist to create a social and professional networking pool for San Franciscos tech worldpart fraternity-sorority, part venture capital investment funder club.-> False again. I have lived in Embassy for 3+ years the events Ive hosted have been queer women and non binary mixers, support groups for formerlly incarcerated, dancing events, and Spanish dinners to meet other latinx people. You read that 2 founders live in the house and used that to erase the experience of the 10+ other people in the house which includes a lot of POC people NOT in tech, not in VC. You are erasing our work and experience by selectively centering two people.

There is a glaring and overwhelming whiteness of its permanent residents. Our current 13 person house includes: 5 white people (Canadian, 3 Americans, 1 UK, 1 German) , 2 mixed race people, 1 latinx person, 1 black person, 1 asian woman, 1 Russian. Again WOW you really erased the MAJORITY of the house of POC people with your inaccurate comment!

or people with disabilities. Two Four people in our home identify as having disabilities; some far more debilitating than others. Not that this is any of your business but many actually struggle with chronic health and/or take disability leave.

We also have a MAJORITY queer / GNC house.

YOU as a journalist felt it was OKAY to stand up for fishbowl not knowing that in the process of trying to villify who they squatted you were stepping on, erasing and misinforming on the experience of Queer, POC, and disabled people. I recommend you consider removing this article and reflecting on the impact that your work has on people in these communities.

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Robots in the crash pad: The twisted takeover of the Red Victorian Hotel - 48 hills - 48 Hills

In the past few years, the pawpawthe largest edible fruit indigenous to North Americahas been popularly hailed in the media as a panacea for a variety of climate-related woes. The New York Times published a piece called The Promise of Pawpaw in 2020, noting that issues like climate change, economic inequity and access to food have brought more attention to this creamy fruit and its resilient tree. Similarly, in 2020 Civil Eats held that the pawpaw could soon become a valuable crop for northern farmers due to a warming climate.

In response to such laudatory comments, many have asked why the pawpaw fell out of favor in American society in the first placeWhat is the pawpaw, and how did we forget it? queried Gastropod, a popular food history podcast.

But perhaps the question we should be asking is not how pawpaw was forgotten, but rather whether pawpaw was forgotten at all. As scholar of Indigenous foodways and member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma Dr. Devon Mihesuah argues, Im not sure that its been forgotten. I think its been ignored, disliked, and unavailable.

Scientists hypothesize that the pawpaw may have been one of many large fruits distributed by herbivores in Central America. The extinction of these herbivores by the end of the Pleistocene era meant that the distribution of such plants was constricted. However, as Jos Hormaza argues, pawpaw was able to survive because it could easily produce numerous root suckers that form pawpaw patches in the wild. Some archaeologists believe that the movement of Iroquois populations contributed to the dispersal of pawpaw north. What is now known scientifically as Asimina triloba is considered indigenous to twenty-six states in the eastern United States, from New York and Michigan in the north to northern Florida in the south, and to Texas, Nebraska, and Kansas in the west. Pawpaw is also found in Ontario, Canada.

Archaeological data demonstrates the significance of pawpaw to early Indigenous diets. As food writer and gardener Andrew Moore writes, Pawpaw seeds and other remnants have been found at archaeological sites of the earliest Native Americans, and in large, concentrated amounts, which suggests seasonal feasts of the fruit. According to Moore, whether at Meadowcroft or the rugged hills of Arkansas, the earliest Americans put pawpaws to great use.

Pawpaws importance to Indigenous peoples in America is reflected not solely archaeologically, but in folklore and linguistics. As Moore notes, the town of Natchitoches [Louisiana] translates to the pawpaw eaters, and is derived from the place-name given by the Caddo, who called pawpaw nashitosh. Joel Barnes, language and archives director for the Shawnee tribe (and tribal member) told West Virginia Public Radio, The word for pawpaw is hasiminikiisfwa. That means pawpaw month. Its the month of SeptemberThat literally means pawpaw moon.

In addition to Indigenous peoples who ate the fruit, pawpaw also at times supplemented the scant provision of enslaved Africans forcibly transported to America through the Middle Passage. Culinary historian and historical interpreter Michael W. Twitty writes in the foreword to Moores book, as I explored the landscapes left by Black communities, I saw these treasure trees growing outside of the dwellings of enslaved people and clustering close to their settlements. Pawpaw, argues Twitty, gave enslaved peoples diversity in a diet built on nutritional monotony, and enabled them to nourish themselves on trails North to freedom. In addition, according to Moore, pawpaws were part of the folk medicine practiced by slaves, and in some communities, seeds from the fruit were worn around necks and believed to prevent various diseases.

When European colonizers first reached America, many, at first, spoke highly of the pawpaw. A Portuguese explorer, part of Hernando de Sotos voyage, wrote, The fruit is like unto Peares Riall [pears royal]; it has a very good smell and an excellent taste. Another European boasted of the fruit in a memoir, I ate, one day, sixty of them, big and little.

While some Europeans may have prized pawpaw, as ideas about race and the body were codified throughout the eighteenth century, many began to have a different, more dismissive view of the fruit. Mark Catesby, an English naturalist at this time, describes it as having a rank, if not fetid smell in a volume of his natural history held by Dumbarton Oaks. He continues, nor is the fruit relished but by very few, except Negroes. Here, foodor rather, the rejection of certain foods deemed differentbecomes central not merely in the display or performance of a fundamentally disembodied colonial identity, but rather the construction and maintenance of the colonial body, to draw on the language of food historian Rebecca Earle.

But even as the pawpaw acted as a marker of difference, it continued to be eaten by some settlers. Hormaza cited William Clark of the Lewis & Clark expedition as writing, Our party entirely out of provisions. Subsisting on poppaws. We divide the buiskit [sic] (biscuits)which amount to nearly one buisket [sic] per man, this in addition to the poppaws is to last us down to the Settlements which is 150 miles. Pawpaws were also important in rural diets, so much so that the fruit is variously referred to as the Kentucky, Indiana, Hoosier, or poor mans banana.

Agronomists, too, praised the virtues of pawpaw in the early nineteenth century: Moore reports that in 1916, the American Genetics Association held a contest searching for the best pawpaws in the country. He writes, the purpose of the contest was to collect games of superior wild pawpaws, from which a serious, scientific breeding experiment could then be conductedSuddenly, the best of Americas pawpaw folk knowledge, and the best pawpaws themselves, were in the hands of scientists.

And yet, despite scientific interest, the pawpaw never reached ubiquity on supermarket shelves. Racialized colonial understandings of the pawpaw may have contributed to its marginalization, alongside new global supply lines. As the postwar era saw an increase in the long-distance shipping of fruit and the progressive integration of global food systems, the pawpaw could not compete with fruits like the banana that are more easily shipped and stored. Indeed, as scientists concluded in 2003, there are a number of practical problems with pawpaw harvest and postharvest storage, especially the fact that pawpaw fruits soften rapidly after being harvested.

Pawpaws thus disappeared from many American diets. Moore chronicles meeting Cherokee tribal elder Jerry Wolfe in North CarolinaWolfe had only seen a pawpaw tree once: Its been quite a number of yearsbut I havent seen it since. Ive looked for it, whenever Im passing or fishing up in there, but I think it died.

This is all to say that the pawpaw was not merely forgotten in American society. Rather, it fell out of favor due to colonial understandings of food as a locus of difference, as well as increasing globalization and economic needs. But some communities are currently trying to revitalize knowledge surrounding the fruit. The New York Times reported that DeLesslin George-Warren, a researcher and organizer from the Catawba Indian Nation, received grants to start his nations first food sovereignty program, which included planting 100 young pawpaw trees. As George-Warren argued, A big part of this is recovering the knowledge that was taken from us through colonizationWe can mourn what was lost, but we still need to work on this, and the earth is our first teacher. And an annual festival dedicated to highlight[ing] the rich history and future possibilities of the pawpaw has been held in Ohio for the past twenty-three years.

So we see that the waning use and current resurgence of the pawpaw has complex historical roots. The Plant Humanities Initiative at Dumbarton Oaks investigates the forces behind the fluctuating fortunes of plant foodsand the way communities are endeavoring to revive valuable traditions of cultivation and consumption.

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Plant of the Month: The Pawpaw - JSTOR Daily