#University of Portsmouth

[thepastisalreadywritten]

[materialsscienceandengineering]

A detailed plan to transform product packaging and significantly cut plastic production and pollution has been developed by researchers. The study comes as government representatives meet in Paris to negotiate a legally binding global plastics treaty with a mandate to end plastic pollution. The research, published today by the University of Portsmouth's Global Plastics Policy Centre, commissioned by the Break Free From Plastic movement, consolidates 320 articles and papers, plus 55 new interviews with reuse experts from around the world [1], to suggest a universal definition of reuse systems and, for the first time, assess how all nations can move away from throw-away packaging. Packaging is responsible for 40% of all plastic in the EU, and plastic packaging waste is set to grow by 46% by 2030, according to the European Commission. The 10 most commonly found single-use plastic items on European beaches, alongside fishing gear, represent 70% of all marine litter in the EU, it says. Reuse systems could cut plastic pollution by 30 percent by 2040.

Read more.

[jscarrattgraphicdesign]

This project was completed as part of a module called Live Design Briefs during my second year at the University of Portsmouth, the module consisted of picking one of the briefs from the D&AD New Blood awards. I picked a brief from Gymshark with the goal to design an app to tie into Gymsharks main products and makes use of their social media image they’ve already built. I designed a partner app to a fitness app they already have that could help people to prepare for careers that require a certain level of fitness.

[brutalistinteriors]

Portsmouth Polytechnic library, now University of Portsmouth. ABK Architects.

[whenthegoldrays]

I honestly think that Mansfield Park (2007) could’ve been a legitimately serviceable adaptation if only Literally Anyone Else had played Edmund

[jamesfitzjamesdotcom]

Dissertation, Fitzertation!

Today I handed in my dissertation for the MA Naval History at the University of Portsmouth. I didn't have nearly enough words to tell the full Fitzjames story, but at least I now have a draft of the biography. After two years of doing the MA, I'm excited to now have more time to devote to writing the Fitzjames biography and the Fitzjames letters book. While also writing my FitzBarrow romance historical fiction on the side. 💕 The Fitzfuture is looking goooood!

I would also like to again say how much I appreciate the support I get from people. You guys keep me going. 🙏

[elephantaday]

Day 955 of posting pictures of elephants.

Source: University of Portsmouth

[probablyasocialecologist]

An innovation that propelled Britain to become the world’s leading iron exporter during the Industrial Revolution was appropriated from an 18th-century Jamaican foundry, historical records suggest. The Cort process, which allowed wrought iron to be mass-produced from scrap iron for the first time, has long been attributed to the British financier turned ironmaster Henry Cort. It helped launch Britain as an economic superpower and transformed the face of the country with “iron palaces”, including Crystal Palace, Kew Gardens’ Temperate House and the arches at St Pancras train station. Now, an analysis of correspondence, shipping records and contemporary newspaper reports reveals the innovation was first developed by 76 black Jamaican metallurgists at an ironworks near Morant Bay, Jamaica. Many of these metalworkers were enslaved people trafficked from west and central Africa, which had thriving iron-working industries at the time. Dr Jenny Bulstrode, a lecturer in history of science and technology at University College London (UCL) and author of the paper, said: “This innovation kicks off Britain as a major iron producer and … was one of the most important innovations in the making of the modern world.” The technique was patented by Cort in the 1780s and he is widely credited as the inventor, with the Times lauding him as “father of the iron trade” after his death. The latest research presents a different narrative, suggesting Cort shipped his machinery – and the fully fledged innovation – to Portsmouth from a Jamaican foundry that was forcibly shut down.

[...]

The paper, published in the journal History and Technology, traces how Cort learned of the Jamaican ironworks from a visiting cousin, a West Indies ship’s master who regularly transported “prizes” – vessels, cargo and equipment seized through military action – from Jamaica to England. Just months later, the British government placed Jamaica under military law and ordered the ironworks to be destroyed, claiming it could be used by rebels to convert scrap metal into weapons to overthrow colonial rule. “The story here is Britain closing down, through military force, competition,” said Bulstrode. The machinery was acquired by Cort and shipped to Portsmouth, where he patented the innovation. Five years later, Cort was discovered to have embezzled vast sums from navy wages and the patents were confiscated and made public, allowing widespread adoption in British ironworks. Bulstrode hopes to challenge existing narratives of innovation. “If you ask people about the model of an innovator, they think of Elon Musk or some old white guy in a lab coat,” she said. “They don’t think of black people, enslaved, in Jamaica in the 18th century.”

[mysticstronomy]

HOW MANY GALAXIES ORBIT THE MILKY WAY??

Blog#454

Saturday, November 16th, 2024.

Welcome back,

In space, the gravitational pull of massive objects is irresistible to smaller ones. Moons are locked in orbit around planets. Planets, asteroids and comets orbit more massive stars, and stars collect around supermassive black holes, forming galaxies.

Large galaxies, like the Milky Way, attract smaller galaxies. Our solar system's cosmic neighborhood spans 100,000 light-years and contains between 100 billion and 400 billion stars. The Milky Way is so big that, over billions of years, its mass has captured numerous dwarf galaxies, which contain no more than a few billion stars, as satellites.

But how many satellite galaxies does the Milky Way have?

The count is continually changing as new telescopes and sky surveys reveal ever-fainter galaxies. But let's start with the ones we can see easily. Two of Milky Way's prominent satellite galaxies are the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Small Magellanic Cloud. They orbit the Milky Way at a distance of about 160,000 light-years and are visible from the Southern Hemisphere without a telescope, according to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

However, such highly visible satellites are the exception, not the rule. Most satellite galaxies are so small and dim that they are invisible to all but the most powerful telescopes. Scientists find dwarf galaxies by using instruments with a wide field of view to capture as much of the sky as possible, said Or Graur, an associate professor of astrophysics at the University of Portsmouth in the U.K.

"The bigger telescopes get and the better our instruments get, we can drill down to fainter and fainter dwarf galaxies, down to what is now called ultra-faint dwarfs," which have just a few hundred thousand stars, Graur told Live Science.

Confirming if a nearby dwarf galaxy is a Milky Way satellite involves spectroscopy — analysis of the light it emits — to determine its motion and direction, said Marla Geha, a professor of astronomy and physics at Yale University.

Originally published on https://www.livescience.com

COMING UP!!

(Wednesday, November 20th, 2024)

"IS TIME TRAVEL POSSIBLE??"

[kay-elle-cee]

@hprecfest Day 23 : a crossover or AU fic

certain sharp things by @thequibblah

Ship: James/Lily Rating: M Relevant Tags: Alternate Universe — Regency, Smut Warnings: N/A Word Count: 8,123

All the other customary marks on James’s body have been made either aboard his ship, his fear abated by cheap spirits, or in foreign ports. But this, they all said, this, his promotion to captain, this deserves ink from the Portsmouth tattooist’s hand. Prompt: tattoo shop AU but make it Regency

[florenceafternoon]

━。゜✿ jily fic recommendations ✿ ゜。━

Another one because I'm on summer break and spend my days reading about how it's them in every universe. Like the last one, this post is for AU fic recs but I made this post for fics set in the canon universe.

For reference, anything in italics is taken from the summaries on ao3.

At The Beginning by @inthe-afterglows

Historical AU in which "Lily's life is changed forever when she takes a morning stroll through the woods and ends up in 1745 - two hundred years in the past."

Or an Outlander / Anastasia AU

Love, love love! Do yourself a favour and listen to Timeless when reading this. I can not express with words how much I loved this one

Faint Hearts and Fair Ladies by @thejilyship

Historical AU where "Sir Lupin heroically gets the royal family out of a castle under siege. Now the three royals and their knight find themselves running for their lives through the forest. James and Lily's tenuous relationship will be tested, as secrets come out and emotions run high." 

Or a Robin Hood AU in which they strive to do better

It's got a well-rounded plot and great world-building with incredible characterisations. The interpersonal communication between James and Lily does a great job of acknowledging how James, while being physically present was emotionally absent. The author explores his grief and makes it a point to note that while it explains his behaviour, it doesn’t excuse it. Despite this, through it all, I was rooting for them. Also, the relationship between the Black brothers was so well written. All of the side characters felt valuable to the story and were dynamic. Overall a really good read! Shout out to big brother Harry and baby Gracie ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎

Fighting the Odds also by @/thejilyship

Hunger Games AU

In which Moody as Haymitch Abernathy is the greatest casting of all time.

certain sharp things by @thequibblah

Historical AU in which "all the other customary marks on James’s body have been made either aboard his ship, his fear abated by cheap spirits, or in foreign ports. But this, they all said, this, his promotion to captain, this deserves ink from the Portsmouth tattooist’s hand."

Or a tattoo shop AU but make it Regency

holy the air, the water, and the fire; also by @/thequibblah

Avatar AU set against a regency backdrop.

Emphasis on the tag "Big-time Matchmaker Euphemia Potter"

An Alliance with an Earl by fluffernutter8 (on ao3)

Regency AU. "Years after she initially rejected his proposal, Lily Evans finds herself in a situation where James Potter, Earl of Gryffindor, can be of help."

In which Frank Longbottom, accidental matchmaker, is grateful for his very nice bottle of brandy

AO3 is Down by @annabtg

AO3 Status: Delayed emails have been sent out and the Archive is back! Thank you so much to our sysadmin james_ for interrupting his sleep to work on and monitor the situation.

Inspired by this very real Tweet, an alternate universe where the sysadmin is James Potter, and Lily Evans is his supervisor who had to drag him out of bed so he could resolve the problem.

The fact that this came on my dash when archive last crashed -

Golden Love by GwenMontrose (on ao3)

Olympics AU. "Paris 2024. Lily Evans, English tennis star, is ready to face the highest challenge of her career and finally fulfil the dream of winning a gold medal at her first Olympics. Now, if only a certain handsome swimmer wasn't set on wreaking havoc in her life, everything would be very much smoother..."

all the time in the world by @eemolu

Uni AU. "Three seconds. That was how long Lily let herself consider the thought of it, before she pushed it away and forced herself to think of something, anything else. One, there was his mouth, obviously, his lips and how they were slightly chapped and definitely capable of driving her mad by the words that came out of them so she could only imagine what else they could do. Two, his shoulders were broad and he insisted on wearing those stupid threadbare T-shirts so she could see the planes of his chest move beneath them when he laughed or stretched or did anything at all, because apparently she was dealing with some kind of Greek marble statue. Three, his hands, and there was no justification she could give to herself for why they transfixed her that couldn’t be seen with one look at them. And that was three, and she was done."

To quote the notes "james potter is hot and I am looking respectfully."

can you play me a melody by @/ eemoul

Modern (band) AU. James sat in the backseat and tried not to stare. This girl was beautiful. The red hair, the green eyes she’d narrowed at him in the rearview mirror. Not to mention the music she was playing, old folk songs he hadn’t heard since he was a child, and louder than he was used to. People usually turned it down so they could talk about James, and who they knew who loved him, and how he should be living his life better. This girl simply drove, and was beautiful.

I'll be cleaning up bottles with you by k_tron (on ao3)

Muggle modern AU where getting drunk at a new years eve party leads to voicing repressed emotions

fainting for you by dhpanya10 (on ao3)

Modern muggle AU. A meet-ugly in which “you just fainted right in front of me please you need to drink more in this heatwave, and oh wow, it turns out you’re also unfairly pretty/handsome when you aren’t passing out on me”

Namecheck for a Bet by MyThirdGuess (on ao3)

‘So, I know that there are many fans out there wondering, and speculating, where the name of my album came from. I feel like I owe them an explanation, especially considering it just won an award.

‘Gryffindor was the name of my house at the boarding school I attended, and I lost a bet when I was sixteen that if I ever released an album, I would show true house pride and name it after Gryffindor.

‘If you think that’s good, just wait. I lost another bet a year later that I would namecheck four people if I ever won an award. So, James, Sirius, Remus, Peter… this is your namecheck.’

barry, bond, and the blues by @oyprongs

"He and his friends beeline for the rock section, which is strategically placed up front, directly in her eye line. She gets a closer look at him, this way. Messy hair, a strand or two curling behind his specs. The lean shoulders of a boy still in the midst of filling out his frame. Long fingers flicking through the bin of records, the light snick sound filtering through the hum of the fan blowing by her ear."

As someone currently on summer holidays, the vibes in this are immaculate. I recommend listening to Jackie and Wilson while reading this.

Polaroid Muse by DeepWatersWaiting (on ao3)

Modern AU. "At a party with Sirius' art friends, James finds himself unexpectedly becoming the subject of someone's polaroid camera."

Because english literature student james potter is everything

Accidental Reindeer by AidanChase (on ao3)

Lily's holiday plans are cancelled, but luckily -- or unluckily -- her least favourite coursemate from university has invited her to his parent's home in the countryside. He just neglected to mention is parents' grand Christmas gala is actually an ugly jumper party.

Just Pretend by sunshinemarauder (on ao3)

Fame AU. In "Five times actors Lily Evans and James Potter kissed for the cameras, and one time it was unmistakably on purpose."

Andrew Garfield Would Never by Yerawizardbec (on ao3)

“Actually, that's where you're wrong McKinnon, from my extensive field research into the male species, I have concluded that Andrew Garfield would never treat you that badly,” Hestia declared, semi-seriously.

“Oh my god, you're so right, Andrew Garfield would never,”

3 Godrics Row also by @/ Yerawizardbec

Legal AU, written by an actual solicitor - Lily Evans was described by the Legal 500 as 'a breath of fresh air’ and ‘the future of the family bar’ but that didn't matter as she stumbled through the front doors of the Court, 30 minutes later than she had anticipated to. After a stressful, horrendous day, Lily finds herself in a bar with a handsome stranger; she hadn't planned on ever seeing him again, but then he pops up in the last place she ever expected to see him, and she can't help but admit, she might just be falling for James Potter, but does she know who he really is?

PHENOMENAL. I am in desperate need of more jily legal AUs so if anyone has any recs, please share

Two Blind Dates by @moonawrites

Lily has had her fair share of good dates, bad dates, dead boring and dead-end dates. But she has never, in all her life, been on a date and had him say, “This might sound insane, but I think you’re my best mate’s soulmate.”

A Happy Accident by @chierafied

James could never have imagined what a little slip of a tongue during a TV show interview might lead to...

The Wedding Ring by @mppmaraudergirl

What is undeniably worse than attending your sister's wedding looking as desolate and forgotten as a wilted houseplant?

Drunkenly ringing your ex-boyfriend and asking him to be your date.

Or a fake-dating AU in which Petunia is Bridezilla

A classic idiots in love

Mixed Impressions (requires an ao3 account) by @charmingwillow

Modern AU. The first time James Potter met Lily Evans he decked her with a day old, soggy waffle. Things don't go well from there... until they do.

TW: grieving parents

Don't ask me how this works but it's like a slice-of-life but with angst (the ambivalence I know).

[jscarrattgraphicdesign]

I called it Gymshark X Careers and focused on tying in the fitness requirements within the various police forces of the UK as well as the army. The results were branding material and a presentation to be presented to a review board at the D&AD New Blood awards.

[lboogie1906]

Ruth Inge Hardison (February 3, 1914 – March 23, 2016) was a sculptor, artist, and photographer, known for her busts entitled “Negro Giants in History”. Her collection called “Our Folks”, which features sculpted portraits of everyday people is of note. Her artistic productions surround historical African American portraiture, and she was interested in representing the unspoken voices of the African American past. She was the only woman in the Black Academy of Arts and Letters.

She was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, her family moved to Brooklyn. She acted in the Broadway Productions of “Sweet River” and “Country Wife”. She began sculpting as a hobby. When she took part in the year-long “What a Life” production, she created a sculpture of its cast, which was displayed at the Mansfield Theatre. She studied Music and Creative Writing at Vassar College. She studied at the Art Students League of New York and Tennessee State University.

Her works began as clay, wax, or plaster molds, and were cast into cast stone or bronze. Her first bust in that series was of Harriet Tubman, which measured eight inches in height; she has created busts of W. E. B. Du Bois, Paul Robeson, George Washington Carver, Frederick Douglass, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Sojourner Truth, and Mary McLeod Bethune, among others. Her bronze Douglass bust, for example, was unveiled at Princeton’s Firestone Library. Other public works include a 7-foot abstract figure called “Jubilee” which stands on the campus of Medgar Evers College, a series of 18 children on an outdoor wall of I.S.74 in Hunts Point in the Bronx, and a five-foot mother and child given to Mount Sinai Hospital to express her gratitude for their help in delivering her only child. She created a series of Ingenious Americans, little-known African American inventors, and other notables commissioned and sold by Old Taylor Whiskey. The series of nine busts included Benjamin Banneker, Charles Richard Drew, Matthew Henson, Frederick McKinley Jones, Lewis Latimer, Garrett Morgan, Norbert Rillieux, Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, and Granville Woods. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[augustheart]

just saw someone's "official" map of the dc universe's version of the united states put portsmouth in WASHINGTON and it spiked my blood pressure so much i had to close the tab immediately

[horsesarecreatures]

"Whilst this study used six participants on a horse simulator (to even out some of the many variables with real horses) this is a standard participant number and is needed to provide a valid statistical test using a t-Test method to show reliability and validity. It does show that the TCS develops less pressure in all areas (left, right, front, back) than a traditional saddle and as such should provide some reassurance to those that wish this."