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NewsFusion for May 2018

Science...

• Hawaii lawmakers ban sunscreen that damages corals | Hawaii News Now
• If you haven't watched NBC's Genius Junior, prepare to be amazed by these whiz kids | NBC
• The physics of Leia using the force in Star Wars: The Last Jedi | Wired

Design...

• The pros and cons of designing modern day rituals | The Atlantic
• The Met Museum's 'Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination' exhibit | Hollywood Reporter
• The surprising role of graphic design in politics, protest, and power | Wallpaper

Culture...

• Moving forward with urban planning for indigenous peoples in Australia means looking back first | The Conversation
• Scientists continue to turn to Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) for insights on natural world | Yale Environment
• Jessica Tyson, 2018 Miss New Zealand aspires to be role model for Māori and other youth | TV New Zealand

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NewsFusion for November 2017

Science...

• New app in Australia will help count frogs | Daily Telegraph
• Excerpt fromThe Physics of Star Wars | Wired
• San Francisco 49ers Foundation brings STEAM education to underserved youth | 49ers Foundation

Design...

• Move over Helvetica, IBM is designing a new font | Fast Company: Co. Design
• Cooper Hewitt's Joris Laarman Lab exhibit highlights digital technologies at intersection of design, art, and science | Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum
• Aerospace and fashion find common, interdisciplinary future | The Daily Free Press

Culture...

• Learning math in your native toungue: How Siberia keeps indigenous languages alive | TASS
  
• Miss Universe New Zealand Miss Universe NZ, Harlem-Cruz Atarangi Ihaia, first to wear tā moko in world competition | Maori Television
• Celebrities discover surprising stories of their ancestors in PBS Series Finding Your Roots, from resourceful immigrants and connections to Holocaust to DNA cousins and slave ownership | NJ

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NewsFusion for March 2016

Science...

• Thinnest lens to date to revolutionize nanotechnology | Tech Times
• The BOSS Great Wall largest 'structure' in universe | Washington Post
• The search for life on Mars goes on...and on | Discovery

Design...

• Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) releases Star Wars: The Force Awakens early concepts | The Independent
• Design Days Dubai in full swing
• Wallpaper's Power 200, worlds leading designers and influencers | Wallpaper

Culture...

• Stanford researchers create computer model of how human activity affects land and indigenous people in Amazon | Phys.org
• Hawaiian high chief Kalani‘ōpu‘u’s feathered helmet and cloak returning to Hawaii
• Get ready for the 2016 St. Patrick Day Festival in Dublin, March 17-20

SeanChron | Gwyndoline Christie's Captain Phasma

How awesome was it to see Captain Phasma on the big screen in Star Wars: The Force Awakens??? Played by Gwendoline Christie of Game of Thrones and Hunger Games fame, the character kinda kicked some ass. Sure, she was part of the dark side but that didn't stop millions of little kids getting into Darth Vader over the last few decades. I just think its it's very cool to have actors like Christie and characters such as those that Christie plays becoming part of mainstream pop culture so that young women (and yes, young men too) have a diversity of inspirational role models to look up to.

Even better, I'm loving the debates on wheter her character and armor is feminine enough. The now famous Star Wars Twitter response to a comment about it being hard to tell that she's wearing female armor sums it up perfectly: "It's Armor. On a woman. It doesn't have to look feminine". Bam! Sure, Daisy Ridley as Rey was kick ass to but she kinda fits the already established female hero character that is has become an important part of film and television these days. Christie and her characters are clearly a new persona. love, Love, Love it!

>> Prudom, L. 2015. Gwendoline Christie on the ‘Unconventional’ Women of ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’. Variety

Star Wars in Diné

Indian Country Today produced a short video, Jedis and Indians! Live From the 'Navajo Star Wars' Premiere on the July 2013 screening of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope” dubbed in Diné (Navajo). The Navajo Nation Museum worked with Lucasfilms to dub the film as a way to encourage current and future generations to speak more Diné. The project took three years and included many translation challenges since words like "starship" didn't translate well into Diné. It is clear that the end product was a huge success and its is REALLY COOL that a story set "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..." has become a valuable tool in keeping an ancient language in use for generations to come.

Below is the Indian Country Today video:

Star Wars at PSC in Seattle

SciFi has long been an inspiration for our possible futures and the Star Wars universe created by George Lucas is certainly one of the shining starts in the genre for helping us imagine what things might be like in a galaxy far, far into the future. An exhibit featuring the technology that went into the making of Star Wars will open on March 19 at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle. Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination, is sure to spark our imaginations once again with over 80 items from the films accompanied by modern technologies that show that far of future may not be so distant after all.