The Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees.

The Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees. In the 14th century, the extraordinary daisugi technique was born in Japan. Indeed, the daisugi provide that these trees will be planted for future generations and not be cut down but pruned as if they were giant bonsai.

MediaLink via /r/Damnthatsinteresting RedditLink

NGC 602 and Beyond

The clouds may look like an oyster, and the stars like pearls, but look beyond. Near the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy some 200 thousand light-years distant, lies 5 million year young star cluster NGC 602. Surrounded by natal gas and dust, NGC 602 is featured in this stunning Hubble image of the region. Fantastic ridges and swept back shapes strongly suggest that energetic radiation and shock waves from NGC 602’s massive young stars have eroded the dusty material and triggered a progression of star formation moving away from the cluster’s center. At the estimated distance of the Small Magellanic Cloud, the featured picture spans about 200 light-years, but a tantalizing assortment of background galaxies are also visible in this sharp multi-colored view. The background galaxies are hundreds of millions of light-years or more beyond NGC 602. via NASA https://ift.tt/2RUHspI

Wikipedia article of the day for May 16, 2021

Wikipedia article of the day is Apollo 7. Check it out: Article-Link Summary: Apollo 7 (October 11–22, 1968) was the first crewed flight in NASA’s Apollo program. It was commanded by Wally Schirra, with command module pilot Donn F. Eisele and lunar module pilot R. Walter Cunningham, and saw the resumption of human spaceflight by the agency after the fire that killed the three Apollo 1 astronauts in January 1967. Determined to prevent a repetition of the fire, the crew spent long periods of time monitoring the construction of their Apollo command and service module (CSM). After liftoff on October 11, 1968, extensive testing of the CSM took place, along with testing of techniques to be used on lunar missions, and also the first live television broadcast from an American spacecraft. Despite tension between the crew and ground controllers, the mission was a complete technical success, giving NASA the confidence to send Apollo 8 into orbit around the Moon two months later, but in part because of those tensions, no member of the crew flew in space again.