Link About It: This Week’s Picks
Art museum banners that block harmful air pollutants, a medical student’s guide to symptoms on darker skin and more from around the web
Malta’s Virtual Underwater Museum
Launched by the Malta Tourism Authority, University of Malta and Heritage Malta, the virtual Underwater Malta museum offers viewers access to 10 archaeological sites, ranging from seven to 361 feet below the surface. Shipwrecks, sunken planes, submarines and various other treasures are on display, and each entry is viewable in 3D with additional details embedded within clickable tabs. The collection is the culmination of five years of collecting data and images to create “the full underwater exploration experience.” Learn more at Underwater Malta’s official site.
Image courtesy of Underwater Malta
Medical Student’s Guide to Symptoms on Darker Skin
During his studies, second-year medical student at St George’s, University of London, Malone Mukwende discovered a lack of diversity and discussion regarding physical symptoms manifesting on darker skin tones. From information about red rashes to lips turning blue, Mukwende says, “It was clear to me that certain symptoms would not present the same on my own skin. I knew that this would be a problem for patients of a similar skin tone to mine, or of a darker skin tone in general.” Working with Margot Turner (lecturer in Diversity and Medical Education) and Peter Tamony (lecturer in Clinical Skills), Mukwende created “Mind The Gap: A Handbook of Clinical Signs in Black and Brown Skin”—a publication to help physicians recognize signs and symptoms appearing on brown and black skin. Throughout the process, faculty at the school found further issues with their educational materials and have vowed to work with Mukwende on decolonizing their curriculum. Read more at the Washington Post.
Image courtesy of Malone Mukwende
Three Spacecraft Head to Mars
This summer, three unmanned spacecraft—the Perseverance (US), Tianwen-1 (China) and Hope Orbiter (United Arab Emirates)—are making the journey to Mars in order to explore. Helicopters, rovers, infrared spectrometers, cameras and other equipment aboard each craft will be controlled from Earth and all the data gathered will add to our ever-growing understanding of the red planet. The New York Times, via NASA, provides graphics for each mission, detailing the spacecraft components, landing gear, vehicles and research instruments—offering a little insight into what each space agency is looking for up there. Read more at The New York Times.
Image courtesy of Wikimages
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao’s Sustainable Banners
Shifting toward a more sustainable world requires radical change: structural reconfiguration of supply chains, pivoting from harsh chemicals and single-use plastics and beyond. The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao’s newest banner ad campaign for their upcoming exhibition, Olafur Eliasson: In Real Life, proves that these changes can also be remarkably subtle. All 250 of the banners act as air-purifiers capable of catching and cleaning volatile components. The printed materials are coated in Pureti Print, a clear elixir that “induces photocatalysis, a chemical reaction triggered by sunlight, using oxygen and water vapor to combat air pollutants like nitrogen and sulfur oxides, as well as bacteria and mold,” Condé Nast Traveler writes. Find out more about the process there.
Image courtesy of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
AFAR Launches an Inspiring “Travel Tales” Podcast
For daydreamers and those who hope to return to travel safely one day, AFAR Media’s new podcast, Travel Tales by AFAR, shares engaging first-person adventures of writers, photographers and other creatives. Each 15-minute podcast—sometimes funny, other times moving—is narrated by the person who lived the story themself. The podcast is the latest vertical in AFAR’s Travel Tales platform, which includes other valuable, personal pieces of travel guidance, from itineraries and articles to illustrated videos. Listen to the first few episodes of Travel Tales on Apple Podcasts now.
Image courtesy of Peter Bohler
Pittsburgh’s 27-Part Drivable Art Exhibition
Sean Rothermel’s April in Paris of Appalachia art exhibition, which ends 31 July, spans 27 outdoor billboards around Pittsburgh and its surrounding metropolitan area. A billboard across the street from Rothermel’s apartment was both an eyesore and a source of inspiration through quarantine. “I struggled a bit early on in the pandemic and found that creative exploration was a helpful mechanism to cope with the stress,” Rothermel tells the Pittsburgh City Paper. He decided to place his art on the spaces typically reserved for advertisements in order to create “a way for people to connect even if that just means agreement on the fact that the artist is a little nuts.” Each piece is meant to be viewed in a specific order, and he made a helpful map to follow, which sets the course for a three-hour drive through the exhibition. Read and see more at the Pittsburgh City Paper.
Image by Jared Wickerham / Courtesy of Pittsburgh City Paper
Link About It is our filtered look at the web, shared daily in Link and on social media, and rounded up every Saturday morning. Hero image courtesy of Stanislav Stepaško
