The Daily Populous

Saturday July 15th, 2017 night edition

image for Apollo 11: What Liftoff Looked Like

It's one of the most immediately recognizable photographic sequences ever made: Ralph Morse's dizzying pentaptych capturing the July 16, 1969, liftoff of Apollo 11.

Here, in five narrow frames, we witness—and celebrate—a distillation of the creativity, the intellectual rigor, the engineering prowess and the fearlessness that defined the best of the Space Race.

[See the complete LIFE special issue on the Apollo 11 triumph, 'To the Moon and Back'].

Morse, now 97 years old, recently spoke with LIFE.com, and briefly described how the sequence came about.

"You have to realize," he says, "that the rocket had to go through the camera, in a sense.

It took me two years to get NASA to agree to let me make this shot.

The camera was wired into the launch countdown, and at around minus-four seconds the camera started shooting something like ten frames per second. »

Homeland Security says Americans who don't want faces scanned leaving the country "shouldn't travel"

Authored by zdnet.com
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The effort aims to help Customs and Border Protection (CBP) track non-immigrant foreigners and those who overstay their visas.

To date, foreigners arriving in the US will have their photo and fingerprints recorded at the border, but Americans are exempt from turning over their biometrics.

But now the agency wants to scan the faces when anyone -- including Americans -- leaves the US. »

Genetically Engineered Yeast Soak Up Heavy Metal Pollution

Authored by acsh.org

Because heavy metals can be dangerous to humans and other wildlife, contaminated sites need to be cleaned up.

So, scientists have increasingly chosen to use the techniques of biotechnology to create genetically engineered microbes capable of gobbling up pollution.

Then, the engineered yeast were tested for their ability to soak up various types of metals. »

Brazil to open up 860,000 acres of protected Amazon rainforest to logging, mining and farming

Authored by independent.co.uk
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The Brazilian environment ministry is proposing the release of 860,000 acres in the National Forest of Jamanxim for agricultural use, mining and logging.

Around 27 percent of the national forest would be converted into an APA, the ministry said.

According to the ministry, the bill includes stipulations to reduce conflicts over land, prevent deforestation and create jobs. »

The Real Threat of Artificial Intelligence

Authored by nytimes.com
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Instead, it is poised to bring about a wide-scale decimation of jobs — mostly lower-paying jobs, but some higher-paying ones, too.

Imagine the gains to a loan company that could issue 30 million loans a year with virtually no human involvement.

These challenges are too far-ranging in their effects for any nation to isolate itself from the rest of the world. »