New York City is plagued with ‘food deserts’, or places where it’s harder to find fresh groceries and healthy foods. These areas are commonly more impoverished neighborhoods, and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio is implementing a Building Healthy Communities Initiative to fight back against these dry spots void of good food.
Food Deserts Commonly Have A Higher Rate of Obesity and Diabetes
Along with higher density of population and crime, the 12 ‘food deserts’ de Blasio is planning to tackle alongside are in neighborhoods that have a high obesity and diabetes rate. This multi-million dollar partnership with private and public companies, including Unilever, the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund and the New York State Health Foundation. The Community Parks Initiative has also pledged to help these communities flourish and have access to healthier foods.
De Blasio Plans to Build Urban Farms All Over New York City
Within the next three years, the public-private partnerships plan to build urban farms on New York City Housing Authority sites, and these areas will also get funding for pedestrian plazas, farmers markets and outdoor exercising areas.
These urban farms will be manned by people with public housing, and will be trained to be able to produce and cook the foods made in these urban farms. In order to make it even more beneficial, if a worker brings a bag of compost to the farm, the same weight will be given to them in fresh produce.
Would Urban Farms in New York City Really Work?
This initiative is naturally positive, and hopefully it will bring a kind of oasis to food deserts, and not just a mere mirage. For communities that don’t have access to a Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s, these urban farms can come as a great help.
One of the biggest issues in the world today is undoubtedly people who are obese. Add on to that how big of a city New York City is and how many good foods there are there, and this problem is escalated. People are seeming to become more out of shape every day. This is a huge case in New York City as obesity numbers there have increased dramatically over the last two decades.
OBESITY IN NEW YORK CITY
Obesity is not an easy thing to stop. It is the result of not getting enough physical activity, not eating correctly, and other factors. The big one is eating unhealthy and that is the hardest to stop for most people. Good tasting foods can be as addicting as nicotine and alcohol. Now we shift to the problem that is arising in New York City. Statistics was given by The State of Obesity: Better Policies for a Healthier America and it noted how New York City is actually the 12th lowest obese state in the country. However, the amount of these people there is increasing rapidly. The State of Obesity states how the percent for New York City was only 9.3 in 1990 for people who were obese. Shift forward ten years and they had them at 17.1 percent. However, currently they have their rate at 27 percent. In 25 years, the rate has risen nearly 20 percent there and that is hard to believe.
WILL OBESITY CONTINUE TO GET WORSE IN NEW YORK CITY
As this trend of percentages of the obesity rate of New York City, from The State of Obesity, continues, it does not seem likely that the rate will decline. Each decade the rate has gone up 10 percent, so with this trend in 2025 the rate will be around 37 percent. It is absolutely crazy to think how bad it has become. The rate is not rising slowly, it is rising rapidly and why should we believe that that will change?
Hailing back to the campfires of ancient nomadic hominids and their sky gods, the question of whether or not we’re alone in the universe is among the oldest that still goes unanswered.
But recently, New Yorkers and Stephen Hawking were asked to help the world search for other inhabited ones with their magnificent tenacity in a $100 million program set to scan the cosmos for extraterrestrial life.
STEPHEN HAWKING JOINS RUSSIAN BILLIONAIRE
The eminent astrophysicist Professor Stephen Hawking, Russian billionaire Yuri Milner agreed to fund a decade-long program named Breakthrough Listen that will search for advanced civilizations on other worlds by listening for radio signals.
Extremely powerful radio telescopes worldwide will coordinate while the data is analyzed with the supercomputing power of millions of PCs in homes and offices in every nation on Earth.
HOW ALL OF US CAN SEARCH FOR ET
The team of scientists led by Peter Worden (former NASA Ames Research Center director) will organize gathered signals, release them to the public, and analyze the data for traces of patterns endemic of intelligence.
Every telescope is expected to create massive banks of data, all of which will be immediately released to the public at large who will be able to download a computer program that will automatically sift through the cosmic waves alongside the most gifted scientific minds for minds from another planet.
OLD IDEA, NEW MEANS
And yes, it’s well known that other organizations have tried this before, so Breakthrough Listen is going to join the University of California in Berkeley’s Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) @home initiative , unifying new technology with good ol’ California grit (and is there any adjective less Californian than grit?).
The software to be used to sift through this cosmic data can actually be rewritten for improvements, so that anyone can customize their own SETI-style apps.
“Breakthrough Initiatives are also developing powerful software for analysing this data. All this software will be open source. The hardware and software used in Listen project will be compatible with other telescopes around the world, enabling them to join the search for intelligent life…[a]nd scientists and members of the public can develop their own apps to sift the data for phenomena of interest.”
WARY OF RUSSIAN BILLIONAIRES?
Yuri Milner Russian billionaire made his riches by making a series of wise investments in technology start-ups like Facebook, and he’s opined that other civilizations could probably teach us ways to handle some of our greatest social antagonisms, like how to allocate natural resources.
The world spends less than $2 million on SETI every year, which is pathetic, so this new source of relatively infinite funds from Breakthrough Initiative is a welcomed boon to the cause.
THE LIMITS OF PHYSICS, THE DRIVE OF LIFE
However, the limits of physics do rain on ET’s parade–any signal detected will almost certainly have been sent many years ago, possibly hundreds or thousands of years ago. It takes four years for a radio signal to travel from the Earth to the nearest solar system. Consequently, direct communication will not be available. Even if we find a signal, we will not be able to respond, except in kind, by radio, which would take just as long to reach them.
In one decade, Milner believes that his $100 billion will be enough for scientists to monitor not only the entire galaxy, but surrounding galaxies, as well.
“It’s the most interesting technological question of our day. If we’re alone, we need to cherish what we have. The message is, the universe has no backup,” said the Russian billionaire.
Professor Stephen Hawking fully condones and supports Milner’s project, but he is still starkly wary about the implications about making contact with a more intelligent species.
“We believe that life arose spontaneously on Earth, so in an infinite universe there must be other occurrences of life. Somewhere in the cosmos perhaps intelligent life may be watching these lights of ours, aware of what they mean.”
Stephen Hawking continues:
“It’s time to commit to finding the answer to search for life beyond Earth. The Breakthrough Initiate is making that commitment.”
get waken up by your favorite smells with the sensorwake alarm clock
I hate rats—just like Henry Jones Senior. But my fear of city rats all started because of a strange book of horror. Actually, it was an illustration in a strange book of horror from the Enchanted World, distributed by Time Life Books.
I couldn’t read at the time, so I laid it out in front of my mother’s book case, and my strange fascination always propelled me to flip to the terrifying page.
It was all about that picture: a swarm of demonized city rats, piling themselves together on top of a man. The only thing I saw was this man’s hand reaching upwards while the buck teeth of rodents peeled away his skin.
And that is why I am scared of rats.
But…
After just over 5 years of living in a city, I have seen my fair share of city rats running across my path, like a black cat on Halloween. I have even seen rats that were frozen to death in the harsh city winters! I once walked by a trash can that rattled, and when I looked over, a rat foot as big as my two thumb nails combined was clinging to the interior edge of the plastic. Even today, I avoid that area like the plague (just in case).
So, that’s why I’m so interested in what the heck city rats do in city life.
There is no question that rats are very intelligent. They are great pets. They are very social, intelligent, and communal! But, for someone like me, the legend that each person in New York City has a rat of their own makes it hard to walk down the streets at night. After all, there are over 8 million people in New York City and the surrounding boroughs. Rats and hamsters (my hamster story is for another time) can start making a whole lot more rats after a few months. Each litter is an average of 12 pups. But, (again: my hamster story is for another time) not all the pups survive to adulthood. That cuts litters in half ().
That’s still A lot! Right….?
A study recently shed light on the ratio of city rats to humans; rats are only 25% as common as people.
Good news for me!
So, even though I expected my move to a city to be plagued with rats, I have actually found it rather rat-less. But… 25% ratio is still a lot of rats, and I’ve only seen a handful.
Rats are part of our lives!
The rats we all know and perceive as city rats are actually the most common species of rat.
They live as omnivorous scavengers, growing fat on our left-overs.
Rats are scavengers. In a way, they clean up after us. That’s a given fact- the relationship between rats and humans is actually mutually beneficial.
But they are more than just scavengers, as I have learned.
Rats are very similar to humans, which is why (unfortunately) they are not protected in the Animal Welfare Act.
Rats, in general, are not a threat, though some have been documented as eating living humans stuck in trench warfare. But, in the city, the worst case scenario is that a rat is scared and runs up your pant leg.
And… because of my hamsters…I’m starting to relate to rats a little bit more.
If you’re interested in seeing landscapes other than “rat-infested subway station” or “greasy Chinese restaurant across the street,” check out Atmoph digital windows, perfect for nature lovers.
New York City is one of the top places everyone dreams of going to, and you are finally there. The plane ride from (insert your location here) wasn’t nearly as bad as your mother told you it’d be.
Your cab ride was just like the movies, fast at some points but way more expensive than you thought it would be.
You are already referring to New York as ‘your city’ like you are a superhero and must protect it at all costs. You remind yourself that New York will be your city for as long as you stay in its glorious presence.
You’ve walked through the streets, through almost every tourist spot on that checklist of places you swore to your family and friends you’d go to and take photos of, so they could feel like they were there right with you the entire time.
The sun is hot and the city has this weird smell you just can’t put your finger on (it’s some hybrid smell of food vendors, various perfumes and a pungent smell of garbage) and you’ve lost count over how many Starbucks you passed along the way. You’ve worn the wrong shoes for walking around today, and now you are on the corner of West Fourth near the IFC movie theater feeling out of place amongst the tattoo covered people walking by you, most of them in black even though it’s June and nearing 90 degrees. Some part of you wants to ask how and why they are wearing all black in the middle of June but you don’t bother because the group of people is smoking and your stomach is making noises that sound like some monsters from a bad horror movie.
The street is filled with restaurants in every direction, but the Dollar Pizza place calls your name because, holy crap, you found a meal in New York City for a dollar! Plus you are trying really hard not to spend all of your money on the first night of being in New York. After paying that glorious dollar you walk down 6th Avenue away from the movie theater and towards a park. A park that has a fountain. You don’t know the name of the park but the sheer fact it has empty benches in the shade makes it your saving grace. You take a seat and start to eat that dollar pizza you bought that really isn’t that bad for a dollar when you think about it. A nice breeze goes by and a few dogs bark at it like they must protect their owners from that horrible thing. You stay in the park for the remainder of the night feeling safe and happy. When you finally leave it, you see the name of the park, Father Demo Square. You take a few photos to appease the family and leave the park with one more loving glance. You’ve found your own little home away from home in New York City.
Urban explorers, keep your phone or tablet charged on the go with the Lepow Poki external battery charger.
For those of you in New York City this week: don’t worry, you’re not being invaded—it’s just that Fleet Week is here. We’ve all been there. The first time you see a group of sailors in their all white uniform and sailor hats, you think it’s a bachelor party. The second time you ask yourself if it’s Halloween yet. Then the third time you see a group of guys in sailor uniforms running around chasing women you realize that something is up, so you ask somebody and they tell you: it’s that time of year: Fleet Week—which has been coming to NYC since 1984. It is a time for New York City to honor the military, and to view for themselves the most recent technologies of the Navy.
Fleet Week 2015 began on Wednesday as the ships entered New York Harbor and docked at the Intrepid Space and Air Museum and will continue throughout the weekend. It is estimated that 1,800 Marines, Sailors and Coast Guardsmen are in the city for Fleet Week.
What Are Some Fleet Week Events That You Can Go To?
For those of you who plan to travel to New York this week, there are many exciting events you can go to. On May 21st, The U.S. Marine Corps sponsors Marine Day in Bryant Park, which is on 42nd Street and 6th Avenue. The event is open to the public all day for no charge. Amongst other activities, you can do a Marine Boot-Camp workout, participate in a pull-up contest, or just sit back and listen to the sounds of the USMC band.
Also, you can travel to several U.S Navy ships in Manhattan and Staten Island from now until Saturday. There are many ships such as the USS San Antonio, and USCG cutter Spencer, which are both stationed at Manhattan’s Pier 92, and the USS Barry, USS Stout, and USCG cutter Sturgeon Bay in Staten Island. Photography is allowed on the ships, but come prepared with food because there is no food service. It is also recommended that you wear comfortable shoes while on-board.
Remember that Fleet Week, where sailors run New York City, is only one week out of the year, so take advantage of this exciting time.
