Các dạng câu hỏi IELTS Reading: đủ 11 dạng kèm câu hỏi mẫu và đáp án

A For millennia, shepherds relied on livestock guard dogs to keep sheep, goats and cattle safe from animals such as wolves and bears.

D Because cheetahs are often blamed for livestock losses, large numbers have been killed by farmers. After guard dogs were introduced, more than 90 per cent of farmers reported a major fall in livestock losses and said they were therefore less likely to kill predators.

E Bethany Smith of Nottingham Trent University reviewed the published evidence and found that as many as 88 per cent of farmers said they stopped killing predators after using dogs.

F In 2015, researchers reported that although farmers with guard dogs affected cheetahs positively, the number of jackals killed by dogs and people actually increased.

G Guard dogs may bring unexpected advantages by protecting vulnerable wildlife from predators.

A Farmers consequently need protection for their herds once more, and guard dogs have returned to work in an unexpected revival.

C Research evidence shows that guard dogs can be extremely effective.

D Today's guard dogs also serve a newer purpose: helping to preserve predators.

E However, she warns that such self-reported results must be taken with a pinch of salt.

F A further concern is that guard dogs may bring unintended ecological effects.

G If this can be done well, there may be a bright future for guard dogs in encouraging peaceful coexistence between humans and wildlife.

A For millennia, shepherds relied on livestock guard dogs to keep sheep, goats and cattle safe from animals such as wolves and bears.

B The dogs stand between the livestock and any danger and bark loudly; if required, they chase predators away, although their presence alone is often enough.

C Van Bommel says that if they are managed and used properly, livestock guard dogs are the most efficient control method available in terms of the livestock they save from predation.

E It is also possible that livestock guard dogs simply push predators towards neighbouring properties that have no dogs, where what happens to the predators is not recorded.

F In addition, their mere presence can create a landscape of fear and alter the behaviour of prey species.

G For instance, their presence has been found to protect ground-nesting birds in fields, where foxes would normally raid the nests.

C In Portugal, biologist Silvia Ribeiro found that over 90 per cent of farmers in a programme using trained guard dogs to protect herds from wolves rated the dogs' performance as very good or excellent. An Australian study by Linda van Bommel and Chris Johnson at the University of Tasmania found that more than 65 per cent of herders said predation stopped completely after they obtained dogs, while almost all the others reported fewer attacks.

D After guard dogs were introduced, more than 90 per cent of farmers reported a major fall in livestock losses and said they were therefore less likely to kill predators.

E Bethany Smith of Nottingham Trent University reviewed the published evidence and found that as many as 88 per cent of farmers said they stopped killing predators after using dogs.

F In 2015, researchers reported that although farmers with guard dogs affected cheetahs positively, the number of jackals killed by dogs and people actually increased.

G Australian researchers are now using dogs to improve biodiversity and create refuges for species threatened by predation.

A For millennia, shepherds relied on livestock guard dogs to keep sheep, goats and cattle safe from animals such as wolves and bears.

B From puppyhood, the dogs are raised with the animals they will later guard, so those animals eventually become the dog's family.

C Research evidence shows that guard dogs can be extremely effective.

D Today's guard dogs also serve a newer purpose: helping to preserve predators.

F They have been found to spread diseases to wild animals, including endangered Ethiopian wolves.

G Australian researchers are now using dogs to improve biodiversity and create refuges for species threatened by predation.

Countries across the globe are no longer simply discussing climate change; they are preparing for it and adjusting to its consequences. Even if every CO2 emission ended tomorrow, the gases already released since the industrial era would continue to have effects, and scientists expect global warming to continue for around 40 years. During that period, ice caps would still melt and sea levels would keep rising. The most severe consequences will not be evenly distributed, and the places facing the greatest pressure are often those where the most inventive responses are appearing.

In Miami Beach, Florida, seawater is not only coming over the island city's defences but also rising through the ground beneath it. The city therefore has little choice but to raise vulnerable areas above sea level. Work began in the lowest neighbourhoods, where some roads have been lifted by as much as 61 centimetres as part of a large and necessary stormwater-management programme. Alongside these road changes, the city has installed powerful new pumps able to remove up to 75,000 litres of water every minute. Yanira Pineda, a senior sustainability coordinator, says flood planning has often paid too little attention to climate-mitigation measures. She argues that they are essential and that the work is continuing: "We know that in 20, 30, 40 years, we'll need to go back in there and adjust to the changing environment."

Many coastal settlements rely on seawalls, but on the soft, muddy northern coast of Java in Indonesia these barriers often collapse and make erosion worse. Attempts have also been made to restore coastal mangroves, which are ecosystems of trees and shrubs that protect the shore by catching sediment in their net-like roots, raising the seabed and reducing the force of waves and tidal currents. Susanna Toi of Wetlands International, a not-for-profit organisation, says most mangrove-planting schemes fail despite their popularity. Her organisation therefore began differently, building semi-permeable dams from bamboo poles and brushwood to imitate mangrove roots and create conditions in which mangroves could return naturally. The scheme has achieved moderate success, especially where land subsidence is less serious. Toi argues that traditional infrastructure too often addresses only one problem. For long-term success, it is critical to move towards multifunctional approaches that embed natural processes and engage and benefit communities and local decision-makers.

When floodwater rose across rice fields in Vietnam's Mekong Delta in September 2018, four small houses rose with it. Houses in the area are usually constructed on stilts, but these had been altered so that they could float. The changes were carried out by the Buoyant Foundation Project, a not-for-profit body that has researched and retrofitted amphibious housing since 2006. Its founder, Elizabeth English, says that when she began, climate change was not widely discussed, but the technology is now becoming necessary in places that did not previously need it. She adds that the approach is much cheaper than permanently raising houses, costing about a third of the price of replacing a building's foundations. It also avoids the extra wind risk faced by taller buildings. A further advantage is that amphibious structures can be adapted with sensitivity to local cultural needs and can resemble the types of houses already found in a community.

Bangladesh is highly exposed to climate change: most of the country lies less than one metre above sea level, and 80 per cent of its land is on floodplains. Raisa Chowdhury of the international development organisation ICCO Cooperation says about 35 million people on Bangladesh's coastal belt are already affected by salty soil and water. Instead of opposing the salinity directly, one project is helping communities live with it. ICCO Cooperation has worked with 10,000 farmers in Bangladesh to grow naturally salt-tolerant crops in the region. Varieties of carrot, potato, kohlrabi, cabbage and beetroot have proved better suited to saline soil than the rice and wheat normally grown there. Chowdhury says the contrast is visible, comparing barren land with a "beautiful, lush green vegetable garden" nearby. Since the project began, farmers trained in saline agriculture have reported two to three additional harvests each year.

In Los Angeles, Greg Spotts is the chief sustainability officer in the city's street services department and leads Cool Streets LA. The programme consists of pilot projects that include planting more trees and applying a "cool pavement" surface, both intended to help the city lower its average temperature by 1.5 degrees C. Spotts says urban cooling is literally a matter of life and death for the future of LA. Using a Geographic Information System data mapping tool, the programme identified streets with little tree-canopy cover in three neighbourhoods. These streets were coated with a light-grey reflective material that had already been shown in Los Angeles to reduce road-surface temperature by 6 degrees C. Spotts notes that one treated street in Winnetka, in the San Fernando Valley, now appears from the International Space Station as a pale crescent, the only cool area on an otherwise red thermal image.

For long-term success, it is critical to move towards multifunctional approaches that embed natural processes and engage and benefit communities and local decision-makers.

Spotts says urban cooling is literally a matter of life and death for the future of LA.

She argues that they are essential and that the work is continuing: "We know that in 20, 30, 40 years, we'll need to go back in there and adjust to the changing environment."

Its founder, Elizabeth English, says that when she began, climate change was not widely discussed, but the technology is now becoming necessary in places that did not previously need it.

For seventy years Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) occupied a central place in American art. What was striking about her career was that she did not attach herself to changing art fashions; instead, she continued to follow a personal vision that sought the essential abstract forms found in nature. Her unusually sharp observation and refined handling of paint enabled her to capture delicate changes in colour, form and light, qualities that gave her paintings vitality and brought them a large public audience.

O'Keeffe was born in 1887 near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, to Francis and Ida O'Keeffe, who raised cattle. She grew up on the family farm with six brothers and sisters, and by the time she left high school in 1905, she had decided to become an artist. She learned traditional painting methods at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1905 and at the Art Students League of New York in 1907-08. After university and training college, she worked as an art teacher in elementary schools, high schools and colleges in Virginia, Texas and South Carolina from 1911 to 1918.

During these years, O'Keeffe started experimenting with abstract compositions in charcoal and created a set of original drawings that moved her art in a fresh direction. She sent some of the drawings to a friend in New York, who then showed them to the art collector and photographer Alfred Stieglitz in January 1916.

Stieglitz admired the drawings and displayed them later that year in his Fifth Avenue gallery in New York City, a space where many avant-garde artists and photographers were introduced to American viewers. Encouraged by Stieglitz and supported by his promise of financial help, O'Keeffe moved to New York in June 1918 to pursue art professionally. Over the following three decades he energetically promoted her work through twenty-two solo shows and many group exhibitions. They married in 1924, and the changing course of their private and professional relationship was recorded in Stieglitz's famous black-and-white portraits of O'Keeffe, made over a period of twenty years from 1917 to 1937.

By the middle of the 1920s, O'Keeffe had become one of the most recognised and successful artists in the United States, especially known for architectural pictures that powerfully presented the soaring skyscrapers of New York. Yet her most frequent subjects were botanical ones, inspired by yearly visits to the Stieglitz family summer house. In the enlarged images of flowers that she began in 1924, O'Keeffe drew the viewer into the picture's space.

By expanding minute details until they covered a canvas about a metre wide, she stressed their lines and shapes and made them seem abstract. These bold compositions helped secure her reputation as an inventive modernist. In 1929 O'Keeffe made her first long visit to New Mexico, a journey that changed her life and immediately affected her art. For the next twenty years she went there almost every year, sometimes staying for six months, painting in relative isolation before returning each winter to New York to show the new work at Stieglitz's gallery. She kept this rhythm until 1949, when she settled permanently in New Mexico.

In New Mexico, O'Keeffe encountered new sources of inspiration. At first, the numerous sun-bleached bones scattered across the rugged landscape stirred her imagination. Two of her earliest and best-known Southwestern works carefully recreate the weathered surfaces, sharp edges and uneven openings of a cow skull. Later she returned to similar ideas in a large group of Pelvis paintings, exploring contrasts between curved outward and inward surfaces and between solid areas and open spaces.

Even so, it was the region's spectacular landscape, marked by unusual geological formations, vivid colour, clear light and unfamiliar vegetation, that held her attention for more than four decades. As she had done with flowers, she often painted rocks, cliffs and mountains in dramatic close-up. O'Keeffe eventually owned two New Mexico homes: a summer retreat at Ghost Ranch below 200-metre cliffs, and a winter house in the small town of Abiquiu. Both places supplied rich imagery for her paintings, but the Abiquiu house's walled patio and black door proved especially important. In more than thirty works between 1946 and 1960, she transformed the patio into an abstract arrangement of geometric forms. From the 1950s to the 1970s, O'Keeffe travelled widely through Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Air travel inspired her final two major series: aerial views of rivers and large paintings of the sky as seen just above the clouds. In these works she enlarged her canvases, sometimes to mural scale, perhaps reflecting her expanded view of the world. In 1965, with help from assistants, she successfully turned one of her cloud motifs into a six-metre canvas, a demanding achievement for an artist approaching eighty.

O'Keeffe's final twenty years were less productive, as poor health and blindness limited her ability to paint. She died in 1986 at the age of ninety-eight, but her legacy of roughly 900 paintings continues to attract later generations of artists and art lovers, who find inspiration in these distinctively American images.

For seventy years Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) occupied a central place in American art. What was striking about her career was that she did not attach herself to changing art fashions; instead, she continued to follow a personal vision that sought the essential abstract forms found in nature. Her unusually sharp observation and refined handling of paint enabled her to capture delicate changes in colour, form and light, qualities that gave her paintings vitality and brought them a large public audience.

O'Keeffe was born in 1887 near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, to Francis and Ida O'Keeffe, who raised cattle. She grew up on the family farm with six brothers and sisters, and by the time she left high school in 1905, she had decided to become an artist. She learned traditional painting methods at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1905 and at the Art Students League of New York in 1907-08. After university and training college, she worked as an art teacher in elementary schools, high schools and colleges in Virginia, Texas and South Carolina from 1911 to 1918.

During these years, O'Keeffe started experimenting with abstract compositions in charcoal and created a set of original drawings that moved her art in a fresh direction. She sent some of the drawings to a friend in New York, who then showed them to the art collector and photographer Alfred Stieglitz in January 1916.

Stieglitz admired the drawings and displayed them later that year in his Fifth Avenue gallery in New York City, a space where many avant-garde artists and photographers were introduced to American viewers. Encouraged by Stieglitz and supported by his promise of financial help, O'Keeffe moved to New York in June 1918 to pursue art professionally. Over the following three decades he energetically promoted her work through twenty-two solo shows and many group exhibitions. They married in 1924, and the changing course of their private and professional relationship was recorded in Stieglitz's famous black-and-white portraits of O'Keeffe, made over a period of twenty years from 1917 to 1937.

By the middle of the 1920s, O'Keeffe had become one of the most recognised and successful artists in the United States, especially known for architectural pictures that powerfully presented the soaring skyscrapers of New York. Yet her most frequent subjects were botanical ones, inspired by yearly visits to the Stieglitz family summer house. In the enlarged images of flowers that she began in 1924, O'Keeffe drew the viewer into the picture's space.

By expanding minute details until they covered a canvas about a metre wide, she stressed their lines and shapes and made them seem abstract. These bold compositions helped secure her reputation as an inventive modernist. In 1929 O'Keeffe made her first long visit to New Mexico, a journey that changed her life and immediately affected her art. For the next twenty years she went there almost every year, sometimes staying for six months, painting in relative isolation before returning each winter to New York to show the new work at Stieglitz's gallery. She kept this rhythm until 1949, when she settled permanently in New Mexico.

In New Mexico, O'Keeffe encountered new sources of inspiration. At first, the numerous sun-bleached bones scattered across the rugged landscape stirred her imagination. Two of her earliest and best-known Southwestern works carefully recreate the weathered surfaces, sharp edges and uneven openings of a cow skull. Later she returned to similar ideas in a large group of Pelvis paintings, exploring contrasts between curved outward and inward surfaces and between solid areas and open spaces.

Even so, it was the region's spectacular landscape, marked by unusual geological formations, vivid colour, clear light and unfamiliar vegetation, that held her attention for more than four decades. As she had done with flowers, she often painted rocks, cliffs and mountains in dramatic close-up. O'Keeffe eventually owned two New Mexico homes: a summer retreat at Ghost Ranch below 200-metre cliffs, and a winter house in the small town of Abiquiu. Both places supplied rich imagery for her paintings, but the Abiquiu house's walled patio and black door proved especially important. In more than thirty works between 1946 and 1960, she transformed the patio into an abstract arrangement of geometric forms. From the 1950s to the 1970s, O'Keeffe travelled widely through Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Air travel inspired her final two major series: aerial views of rivers and large paintings of the sky as seen just above the clouds. In these works she enlarged her canvases, sometimes to mural scale, perhaps reflecting her expanded view of the world. In 1965, with help from assistants, she successfully turned one of her cloud motifs into a six-metre canvas, a demanding achievement for an artist approaching eighty.

O'Keeffe's final twenty years were less productive, as poor health and blindness limited her ability to paint. She died in 1986 at the age of ninety-eight, but her legacy of roughly 900 paintings continues to attract later generations of artists and art lovers, who find inspiration in these distinctively American images.

For seventy years Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) occupied a central place in American art. What was striking about her career was that she did not attach herself to changing art fashions; instead, she continued to follow a personal vision that sought the essential abstract forms found in nature. Her unusually sharp observation and refined handling of paint enabled her to capture delicate changes in colour, form and light, qualities that gave her paintings vitality and brought them a large public audience.

O'Keeffe was born in 1887 near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, to Francis and Ida O'Keeffe, who raised cattle. She grew up on the family farm with six brothers and sisters, and by the time she left high school in 1905, she had decided to become an artist. She learned traditional painting methods at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1905 and at the Art Students League of New York in 1907-08. After university and training college, she worked as an art teacher in elementary schools, high schools and colleges in Virginia, Texas and South Carolina from 1911 to 1918.

During these years, O'Keeffe started experimenting with abstract compositions in charcoal and created a set of original drawings that moved her art in a fresh direction. She sent some of the drawings to a friend in New York, who then showed them to the art collector and photographer Alfred Stieglitz in January 1916.

Stieglitz admired the drawings and displayed them later that year in his Fifth Avenue gallery in New York City, a space where many avant-garde artists and photographers were introduced to American viewers. Encouraged by Stieglitz and supported by his promise of financial help, O'Keeffe moved to New York in June 1918 to pursue art professionally. Over the following three decades he energetically promoted her work through twenty-two solo shows and many group exhibitions. They married in 1924, and the changing course of their private and professional relationship was recorded in Stieglitz's famous black-and-white portraits of O'Keeffe, made over a period of twenty years from 1917 to 1937.

By the middle of the 1920s, O'Keeffe had become one of the most recognised and successful artists in the United States, especially known for architectural pictures that powerfully presented the soaring skyscrapers of New York. Yet her most frequent subjects were botanical ones, inspired by yearly visits to the Stieglitz family summer house. In the enlarged images of flowers that she began in 1924, O'Keeffe drew the viewer into the picture's space.

By expanding minute details until they covered a canvas about a metre wide, she stressed their lines and shapes and made them seem abstract. These bold compositions helped secure her reputation as an inventive modernist. In 1929 O'Keeffe made her first long visit to New Mexico, a journey that changed her life and immediately affected her art. For the next twenty years she went there almost every year, sometimes staying for six months, painting in relative isolation before returning each winter to New York to show the new work at Stieglitz's gallery. She kept this rhythm until 1949, when she settled permanently in New Mexico.

In New Mexico, O'Keeffe encountered new sources of inspiration. At first, the numerous sun-bleached bones scattered across the rugged landscape stirred her imagination. Two of her earliest and best-known Southwestern works carefully recreate the weathered surfaces, sharp edges and uneven openings of a cow skull. Later she returned to similar ideas in a large group of Pelvis paintings, exploring contrasts between curved outward and inward surfaces and between solid areas and open spaces.

Even so, it was the region's spectacular landscape, marked by unusual geological formations, vivid colour, clear light and unfamiliar vegetation, that held her attention for more than four decades. As she had done with flowers, she often painted rocks, cliffs and mountains in dramatic close-up. O'Keeffe eventually owned two New Mexico homes: a summer retreat at Ghost Ranch below 200-metre cliffs, and a winter house in the small town of Abiquiu. Both places supplied rich imagery for her paintings, but the Abiquiu house's walled patio and black door proved especially important. In more than thirty works between 1946 and 1960, she transformed the patio into an abstract arrangement of geometric forms. From the 1950s to the 1970s, O'Keeffe travelled widely through Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Air travel inspired her final two major series: aerial views of rivers and large paintings of the sky as seen just above the clouds. In these works she enlarged her canvases, sometimes to mural scale, perhaps reflecting her expanded view of the world. In 1965, with help from assistants, she successfully turned one of her cloud motifs into a six-metre canvas, a demanding achievement for an artist approaching eighty.

O'Keeffe's final twenty years were less productive, as poor health and blindness limited her ability to paint. She died in 1986 at the age of ninety-eight, but her legacy of roughly 900 paintings continues to attract later generations of artists and art lovers, who find inspiration in these distinctively American images.

For seventy years Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) occupied a central place in American art. What was striking about her career was that she did not attach herself to changing art fashions; instead, she continued to follow a personal vision that sought the essential abstract forms found in nature. Her unusually sharp observation and refined handling of paint enabled her to capture delicate changes in colour, form and light, qualities that gave her paintings vitality and brought them a large public audience.

O'Keeffe was born in 1887 near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, to Francis and Ida O'Keeffe, who raised cattle. She grew up on the family farm with six brothers and sisters, and by the time she left high school in 1905, she had decided to become an artist. She learned traditional painting methods at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1905 and at the Art Students League of New York in 1907-08. After university and training college, she worked as an art teacher in elementary schools, high schools and colleges in Virginia, Texas and South Carolina from 1911 to 1918.

During these years, O'Keeffe started experimenting with abstract compositions in charcoal and created a set of original drawings that moved her art in a fresh direction. She sent some of the drawings to a friend in New York, who then showed them to the art collector and photographer Alfred Stieglitz in January 1916.

Stieglitz admired the drawings and displayed them later that year in his Fifth Avenue gallery in New York City, a space where many avant-garde artists and photographers were introduced to American viewers. Encouraged by Stieglitz and supported by his promise of financial help, O'Keeffe moved to New York in June 1918 to pursue art professionally. Over the following three decades he energetically promoted her work through twenty-two solo shows and many group exhibitions. They married in 1924, and the changing course of their private and professional relationship was recorded in Stieglitz's famous black-and-white portraits of O'Keeffe, made over a period of twenty years from 1917 to 1937.

By the middle of the 1920s, O'Keeffe had become one of the most recognised and successful artists in the United States, especially known for architectural pictures that powerfully presented the soaring skyscrapers of New York. Yet her most frequent subjects were botanical ones, inspired by yearly visits to the Stieglitz family summer house. In the enlarged images of flowers that she began in 1924, O'Keeffe drew the viewer into the picture's space.

By expanding minute details until they covered a canvas about a metre wide, she stressed their lines and shapes and made them seem abstract. These bold compositions helped secure her reputation as an inventive modernist. In 1929 O'Keeffe made her first long visit to New Mexico, a journey that changed her life and immediately affected her art. For the next twenty years she went there almost every year, sometimes staying for six months, painting in relative isolation before returning each winter to New York to show the new work at Stieglitz's gallery. She kept this rhythm until 1949, when she settled permanently in New Mexico.

In New Mexico, O'Keeffe encountered new sources of inspiration. At first, the numerous sun-bleached bones scattered across the rugged landscape stirred her imagination. Two of her earliest and best-known Southwestern works carefully recreate the weathered surfaces, sharp edges and uneven openings of a cow skull. Later she returned to similar ideas in a large group of Pelvis paintings, exploring contrasts between curved outward and inward surfaces and between solid areas and open spaces.

Even so, it was the region's spectacular landscape, marked by unusual geological formations, vivid colour, clear light and unfamiliar vegetation, that held her attention for more than four decades. As she had done with flowers, she often painted rocks, cliffs and mountains in dramatic close-up. O'Keeffe eventually owned two New Mexico homes: a summer retreat at Ghost Ranch below 200-metre cliffs, and a winter house in the small town of Abiquiu. Both places supplied rich imagery for her paintings, but the Abiquiu house's walled patio and black door proved especially important. In more than thirty works between 1946 and 1960, she transformed the patio into an abstract arrangement of geometric forms. From the 1950s to the 1970s, O'Keeffe travelled widely through Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Air travel inspired her final two major series: aerial views of rivers and large paintings of the sky as seen just above the clouds. In these works she enlarged her canvases, sometimes to mural scale, perhaps reflecting her expanded view of the world. In 1965, with help from assistants, she successfully turned one of her cloud motifs into a six-metre canvas, a demanding achievement for an artist approaching eighty.

O'Keeffe's final twenty years were less productive, as poor health and blindness limited her ability to paint. She died in 1986 at the age of ninety-eight, but her legacy of roughly 900 paintings continues to attract later generations of artists and art lovers, who find inspiration in these distinctively American images.

For seventy years Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) occupied a central place in American art. What was striking about her career was that she did not attach herself to changing art fashions; instead, she continued to follow a personal vision that sought the essential abstract forms found in nature. Her unusually sharp observation and refined handling of paint enabled her to capture delicate changes in colour, form and light, qualities that gave her paintings vitality and brought them a large public audience.

O'Keeffe was born in 1887 near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, to Francis and Ida O'Keeffe, who raised cattle. She grew up on the family farm with six brothers and sisters, and by the time she left high school in 1905, she had decided to become an artist. She learned traditional painting methods at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1905 and at the Art Students League of New York in 1907-08. After university and training college, she worked as an art teacher in elementary schools, high schools and colleges in Virginia, Texas and South Carolina from 1911 to 1918.

During these years, O'Keeffe started experimenting with abstract compositions in charcoal and created a set of original drawings that moved her art in a fresh direction. She sent some of the drawings to a friend in New York, who then showed them to the art collector and photographer Alfred Stieglitz in January 1916.

Stieglitz admired the drawings and displayed them later that year in his Fifth Avenue gallery in New York City, a space where many avant-garde artists and photographers were introduced to American viewers. Encouraged by Stieglitz and supported by his promise of financial help, O'Keeffe moved to New York in June 1918 to pursue art professionally. Over the following three decades he energetically promoted her work through twenty-two solo shows and many group exhibitions. They married in 1924, and the changing course of their private and professional relationship was recorded in Stieglitz's famous black-and-white portraits of O'Keeffe, made over a period of twenty years from 1917 to 1937.

By the middle of the 1920s, O'Keeffe had become one of the most recognised and successful artists in the United States, especially known for architectural pictures that powerfully presented the soaring skyscrapers of New York. Yet her most frequent subjects were botanical ones, inspired by yearly visits to the Stieglitz family summer house. In the enlarged images of flowers that she began in 1924, O'Keeffe drew the viewer into the picture's space.

By expanding minute details until they covered a canvas about a metre wide, she stressed their lines and shapes and made them seem abstract. These bold compositions helped secure her reputation as an inventive modernist. In 1929 O'Keeffe made her first long visit to New Mexico, a journey that changed her life and immediately affected her art. For the next twenty years she went there almost every year, sometimes staying for six months, painting in relative isolation before returning each winter to New York to show the new work at Stieglitz's gallery. She kept this rhythm until 1949, when she settled permanently in New Mexico.

In New Mexico, O'Keeffe encountered new sources of inspiration. At first, the numerous sun-bleached bones scattered across the rugged landscape stirred her imagination. Two of her earliest and best-known Southwestern works carefully recreate the weathered surfaces, sharp edges and uneven openings of a cow skull. Later she returned to similar ideas in a large group of Pelvis paintings, exploring contrasts between curved outward and inward surfaces and between solid areas and open spaces.

Even so, it was the region's spectacular landscape, marked by unusual geological formations, vivid colour, clear light and unfamiliar vegetation, that held her attention for more than four decades. As she had done with flowers, she often painted rocks, cliffs and mountains in dramatic close-up. O'Keeffe eventually owned two New Mexico homes: a summer retreat at Ghost Ranch below 200-metre cliffs, and a winter house in the small town of Abiquiu. Both places supplied rich imagery for her paintings, but the Abiquiu house's walled patio and black door proved especially important. In more than thirty works between 1946 and 1960, she transformed the patio into an abstract arrangement of geometric forms. From the 1950s to the 1970s, O'Keeffe travelled widely through Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Air travel inspired her final two major series: aerial views of rivers and large paintings of the sky as seen just above the clouds. In these works she enlarged her canvases, sometimes to mural scale, perhaps reflecting her expanded view of the world. In 1965, with help from assistants, she successfully turned one of her cloud motifs into a six-metre canvas, a demanding achievement for an artist approaching eighty.

O'Keeffe's final twenty years were less productive, as poor health and blindness limited her ability to paint. She died in 1986 at the age of ninety-eight, but her legacy of roughly 900 paintings continues to attract later generations of artists and art lovers, who find inspiration in these distinctively American images.

For seventy years Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) occupied a central place in American art. What was striking about her career was that she did not attach herself to changing art fashions; instead, she continued to follow a personal vision that sought the essential abstract forms found in nature. Her unusually sharp observation and refined handling of paint enabled her to capture delicate changes in colour, form and light, qualities that gave her paintings vitality and brought them a large public audience.

O'Keeffe was born in 1887 near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, to Francis and Ida O'Keeffe, who raised cattle. She grew up on the family farm with six brothers and sisters, and by the time she left high school in 1905, she had decided to become an artist. She learned traditional painting methods at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1905 and at the Art Students League of New York in 1907-08. After university and training college, she worked as an art teacher in elementary schools, high schools and colleges in Virginia, Texas and South Carolina from 1911 to 1918.

During these years, O'Keeffe started experimenting with abstract compositions in charcoal and created a set of original drawings that moved her art in a fresh direction. She sent some of the drawings to a friend in New York, who then showed them to the art collector and photographer Alfred Stieglitz in January 1916.

Stieglitz admired the drawings and displayed them later that year in his Fifth Avenue gallery in New York City, a space where many avant-garde artists and photographers were introduced to American viewers. Encouraged by Stieglitz and supported by his promise of financial help, O'Keeffe moved to New York in June 1918 to pursue art professionally. Over the following three decades he energetically promoted her work through twenty-two solo shows and many group exhibitions. They married in 1924, and the changing course of their private and professional relationship was recorded in Stieglitz's famous black-and-white portraits of O'Keeffe, made over a period of twenty years from 1917 to 1937.

By the middle of the 1920s, O'Keeffe had become one of the most recognised and successful artists in the United States, especially known for architectural pictures that powerfully presented the soaring skyscrapers of New York. Yet her most frequent subjects were botanical ones, inspired by yearly visits to the Stieglitz family summer house. In the enlarged images of flowers that she began in 1924, O'Keeffe drew the viewer into the picture's space.

By expanding minute details until they covered a canvas about a metre wide, she stressed their lines and shapes and made them seem abstract. These bold compositions helped secure her reputation as an inventive modernist. In 1929 O'Keeffe made her first long visit to New Mexico, a journey that changed her life and immediately affected her art. For the next twenty years she went there almost every year, sometimes staying for six months, painting in relative isolation before returning each winter to New York to show the new work at Stieglitz's gallery. She kept this rhythm until 1949, when she settled permanently in New Mexico.

In New Mexico, O'Keeffe encountered new sources of inspiration. At first, the numerous sun-bleached bones scattered across the rugged landscape stirred her imagination. Two of her earliest and best-known Southwestern works carefully recreate the weathered surfaces, sharp edges and uneven openings of a cow skull. Later she returned to similar ideas in a large group of Pelvis paintings, exploring contrasts between curved outward and inward surfaces and between solid areas and open spaces.

Even so, it was the region's spectacular landscape, marked by unusual geological formations, vivid colour, clear light and unfamiliar vegetation, that held her attention for more than four decades. As she had done with flowers, she often painted rocks, cliffs and mountains in dramatic close-up. O'Keeffe eventually owned two New Mexico homes: a summer retreat at Ghost Ranch below 200-metre cliffs, and a winter house in the small town of Abiquiu. Both places supplied rich imagery for her paintings, but the Abiquiu house's walled patio and black door proved especially important. In more than thirty works between 1946 and 1960, she transformed the patio into an abstract arrangement of geometric forms. From the 1950s to the 1970s, O'Keeffe travelled widely through Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Air travel inspired her final two major series: aerial views of rivers and large paintings of the sky as seen just above the clouds. In these works she enlarged her canvases, sometimes to mural scale, perhaps reflecting her expanded view of the world. In 1965, with help from assistants, she successfully turned one of her cloud motifs into a six-metre canvas, a demanding achievement for an artist approaching eighty.

O'Keeffe's final twenty years were less productive, as poor health and blindness limited her ability to paint. She died in 1986 at the age of ninety-eight, but her legacy of roughly 900 paintings continues to attract later generations of artists and art lovers, who find inspiration in these distinctively American images.

A few years ago, Fred DeJesus of Brooklyn, New York, became the first umpire in a minor-league baseball game to work with the Automated Ball-Strike System (ABS), commonly called the robo-umpire. Rather than decide for himself whether a pitch was a strike*, DeJesus received the decision through an earpiece linked to a modified missile-tracking system. The machine, fixed above the press stand, resembled a large black pizza box with one glowing green eye.

Major League Baseball (MLB), which had ordered the system, still wanted human umpires to announce the calls, just as they had done in their former roles. On the first pitch, a recorded voice informed DeJesus that it was a strike. Before this, calling a strike had required a subjective assessment by the umpire. If the batter did not hit the ball, a pitch passing through the strike zone - a perceived area about seventeen inches wide from the batter's knees to the middle of the chest - counted as a strike. In that first game, after DeJesus made the calls, there was no heckling and no shouted objection. The response was total silence.

For roughly 150 years, the strike zone has been one of baseball's driving forces, producing numerous disputes between managers and umpires about its limits and whether a ball had travelled through it. The rules of behaviour have changed over time. Today, everyone understands that a manager may shout disagreement directly at an umpire, but must not use personal abuse or make physical contact. When robo-umpires arrived, however, those arguments disappeared.

Players complained about some unusual calls during the first season with robo-umpires. MLB responded by adjusting the dimensions of the zone, and in the next year there was general agreement that ABS was highly consistent. According to MLB, the device is almost perfect and accurate to within tiny fractions of an inch. Rob Manfred, the MLB Commissioner, says it will reduce controversy and benefit the game. The issue, however, is whether reducing controversy is desirable or whether controversy reveals the presence of a human hand.

A person, at least, can shout back. Frank Viola, a coach for a North Carolina team, told me that ABS performs as intended, but that it is also unforgiving and excessively exact, almost like a legal code. Viola pointed out that Manfred is a lawyer. Some pitchers say the robot's strike zone feels too precise compared with a human one. Viola, formerly a major-league player, explained that umpires used to reward skill when he was pitching: if the pitcher put the ball where he intended, it could be called a strike even one or two inches outside the zone. There was a dialogue between pitcher and umpire.

The MLB executive responsible for the experiment is Morgan Sword, head of baseball operations. Sword says ABS formed part of a wider attempt to make baseball more exciting because executives fear losing younger fans, as horse racing and boxing have done. The process began by asking fans what kind of baseball they found most exciting. Their answers favoured more action: more hits, more defence and more baserunning. That style has largely been absent since the 1960s, when the hundred-mile-an-hour fastball, hard to hit and hard to control, entered the sport. It reduced the game to strikeouts, walks and home runs, a pattern with little action.

Sword's group considered possible remedies. They discussed changing almost any existing rule, from the bats to the shape of the field. Those ideas were rejected as solutions, but ABS was viewed as an ideal way to make change possible. Sword argues that once the technology works, any strike zone can be entered into the system. It could be a triangle, a blob or even a shape like Texas. As baseball changes over time, ABS makes changes to the shape of the strike zone feasible.

Over the past two decades, sport has moved away from judgement calls. Soccer uses Video Assistant Referees for decisions such as offside, tennis uses Hawk-Eye for line calls, and baseball has used instant replay on the bases for nearly ten years. Fans generally like these systems, although their precision can sometimes create difficulties. These examples deal with physical things: bases, lines and goals. Their boundaries are exact, like piano keys. ABS and the strike zone are different. In baseball, a degree of discretion has traditionally been valued. I emailed Alva Noe, a professor at Berkeley University and a baseball supporter, to ask for his opinion. He replied that hardly a day passed without him thinking through why robo-umpires were such a bad idea. Later he told me that this was part of a broader movement to use algorithms to remove life's difficult choices. He may be right. We watch baseball to pass time, not to maximise it. Some players I have met also object to the robots because they believe accuracy is not the answer. Joe Russo, who plays for a New Jersey team, says technology makes people want everything perfect, but that is not reality. In his view, perfection would be strange: teams always winning, work always going well, money always available and cars never breaking down. What, he asks, would there be to talk about?

A few years ago, Fred DeJesus of Brooklyn, New York, became the first umpire in a minor-league baseball game to work with the Automated Ball-Strike System (ABS), commonly called the robo-umpire. Rather than decide for himself whether a pitch was a strike*, DeJesus received the decision through an earpiece linked to a modified missile-tracking system. The machine, fixed above the press stand, resembled a large black pizza box with one glowing green eye.

Major League Baseball (MLB), which had ordered the system, still wanted human umpires to announce the calls, just as they had done in their former roles. On the first pitch, a recorded voice informed DeJesus that it was a strike. Before this, calling a strike had required a subjective assessment by the umpire. If the batter did not hit the ball, a pitch passing through the strike zone - a perceived area about seventeen inches wide from the batter's knees to the middle of the chest - counted as a strike. In that first game, after DeJesus made the calls, there was no heckling and no shouted objection. The response was total silence.

For roughly 150 years, the strike zone has been one of baseball's driving forces, producing numerous disputes between managers and umpires about its limits and whether a ball had travelled through it. The rules of behaviour have changed over time. Today, everyone understands that a manager may shout disagreement directly at an umpire, but must not use personal abuse or make physical contact. When robo-umpires arrived, however, those arguments disappeared.

Players complained about some unusual calls during the first season with robo-umpires. MLB responded by adjusting the dimensions of the zone, and in the next year there was general agreement that ABS was highly consistent. According to MLB, the device is almost perfect and accurate to within tiny fractions of an inch. Rob Manfred, the MLB Commissioner, says it will reduce controversy and benefit the game. The issue, however, is whether reducing controversy is desirable or whether controversy reveals the presence of a human hand.

A person, at least, can shout back. Frank Viola, a coach for a North Carolina team, told me that ABS performs as intended, but that it is also unforgiving and excessively exact, almost like a legal code. Viola pointed out that Manfred is a lawyer. Some pitchers say the robot's strike zone feels too precise compared with a human one. Viola, formerly a major-league player, explained that umpires used to reward skill when he was pitching: if the pitcher put the ball where he intended, it could be called a strike even one or two inches outside the zone. There was a dialogue between pitcher and umpire.

The MLB executive responsible for the experiment is Morgan Sword, head of baseball operations. Sword says ABS formed part of a wider attempt to make baseball more exciting because executives fear losing younger fans, as horse racing and boxing have done. The process began by asking fans what kind of baseball they found most exciting. Their answers favoured more action: more hits, more defence and more baserunning. That style has largely been absent since the 1960s, when the hundred-mile-an-hour fastball, hard to hit and hard to control, entered the sport. It reduced the game to strikeouts, walks and home runs, a pattern with little action.

Sword's group considered possible remedies. They discussed changing almost any existing rule, from the bats to the shape of the field. Those ideas were rejected as solutions, but ABS was viewed as an ideal way to make change possible. Sword argues that once the technology works, any strike zone can be entered into the system. It could be a triangle, a blob or even a shape like Texas. As baseball changes over time, ABS makes changes to the shape of the strike zone feasible.

Over the past two decades, sport has moved away from judgement calls. Soccer uses Video Assistant Referees for decisions such as offside, tennis uses Hawk-Eye for line calls, and baseball has used instant replay on the bases for nearly ten years. Fans generally like these systems, although their precision can sometimes create difficulties. These examples deal with physical things: bases, lines and goals. Their boundaries are exact, like piano keys. ABS and the strike zone are different. In baseball, a degree of discretion has traditionally been valued. I emailed Alva Noe, a professor at Berkeley University and a baseball supporter, to ask for his opinion. He replied that hardly a day passed without him thinking through why robo-umpires were such a bad idea. Later he told me that this was part of a broader movement to use algorithms to remove life's difficult choices. He may be right. We watch baseball to pass time, not to maximise it. Some players I have met also object to the robots because they believe accuracy is not the answer. Joe Russo, who plays for a New Jersey team, says technology makes people want everything perfect, but that is not reality. In his view, perfection would be strange: teams always winning, work always going well, money always available and cars never breaking down. What, he asks, would there be to talk about?

A few years ago, Fred DeJesus of Brooklyn, New York, became the first umpire in a minor-league baseball game to work with the Automated Ball-Strike System (ABS), commonly called the robo-umpire. Rather than decide for himself whether a pitch was a strike*, DeJesus received the decision through an earpiece linked to a modified missile-tracking system. The machine, fixed above the press stand, resembled a large black pizza box with one glowing green eye.

Major League Baseball (MLB), which had ordered the system, still wanted human umpires to announce the calls, just as they had done in their former roles. On the first pitch, a recorded voice informed DeJesus that it was a strike. Before this, calling a strike had required a subjective assessment by the umpire. If the batter did not hit the ball, a pitch passing through the strike zone - a perceived area about seventeen inches wide from the batter's knees to the middle of the chest - counted as a strike. In that first game, after DeJesus made the calls, there was no heckling and no shouted objection. The response was total silence.

For roughly 150 years, the strike zone has been one of baseball's driving forces, producing numerous disputes between managers and umpires about its limits and whether a ball had travelled through it. The rules of behaviour have changed over time. Today, everyone understands that a manager may shout disagreement directly at an umpire, but must not use personal abuse or make physical contact. When robo-umpires arrived, however, those arguments disappeared.

Players complained about some unusual calls during the first season with robo-umpires. MLB responded by adjusting the dimensions of the zone, and in the next year there was general agreement that ABS was highly consistent. According to MLB, the device is almost perfect and accurate to within tiny fractions of an inch. Rob Manfred, the MLB Commissioner, says it will reduce controversy and benefit the game. The issue, however, is whether reducing controversy is desirable or whether controversy reveals the presence of a human hand.

A person, at least, can shout back. Frank Viola, a coach for a North Carolina team, told me that ABS performs as intended, but that it is also unforgiving and excessively exact, almost like a legal code. Viola pointed out that Manfred is a lawyer. Some pitchers say the robot's strike zone feels too precise compared with a human one. Viola, formerly a major-league player, explained that umpires used to reward skill when he was pitching: if the pitcher put the ball where he intended, it could be called a strike even one or two inches outside the zone. There was a dialogue between pitcher and umpire.

The MLB executive responsible for the experiment is Morgan Sword, head of baseball operations. Sword says ABS formed part of a wider attempt to make baseball more exciting because executives fear losing younger fans, as horse racing and boxing have done. The process began by asking fans what kind of baseball they found most exciting. Their answers favoured more action: more hits, more defence and more baserunning. That style has largely been absent since the 1960s, when the hundred-mile-an-hour fastball, hard to hit and hard to control, entered the sport. It reduced the game to strikeouts, walks and home runs, a pattern with little action.

Sword's group considered possible remedies. They discussed changing almost any existing rule, from the bats to the shape of the field. Those ideas were rejected as solutions, but ABS was viewed as an ideal way to make change possible. Sword argues that once the technology works, any strike zone can be entered into the system. It could be a triangle, a blob or even a shape like Texas. As baseball changes over time, ABS makes changes to the shape of the strike zone feasible.

Over the past two decades, sport has moved away from judgement calls. Soccer uses Video Assistant Referees for decisions such as offside, tennis uses Hawk-Eye for line calls, and baseball has used instant replay on the bases for nearly ten years. Fans generally like these systems, although their precision can sometimes create difficulties. These examples deal with physical things: bases, lines and goals. Their boundaries are exact, like piano keys. ABS and the strike zone are different. In baseball, a degree of discretion has traditionally been valued. I emailed Alva Noe, a professor at Berkeley University and a baseball supporter, to ask for his opinion. He replied that hardly a day passed without him thinking through why robo-umpires were such a bad idea. Later he told me that this was part of a broader movement to use algorithms to remove life's difficult choices. He may be right. We watch baseball to pass time, not to maximise it. Some players I have met also object to the robots because they believe accuracy is not the answer. Joe Russo, who plays for a New Jersey team, says technology makes people want everything perfect, but that is not reality. In his view, perfection would be strange: teams always winning, work always going well, money always available and cars never breaking down. What, he asks, would there be to talk about?

A few years ago, Fred DeJesus of Brooklyn, New York, became the first umpire in a minor-league baseball game to work with the Automated Ball-Strike System (ABS), commonly called the robo-umpire. Rather than decide for himself whether a pitch was a strike*, DeJesus received the decision through an earpiece linked to a modified missile-tracking system. The machine, fixed above the press stand, resembled a large black pizza box with one glowing green eye.

Major League Baseball (MLB), which had ordered the system, still wanted human umpires to announce the calls, just as they had done in their former roles. On the first pitch, a recorded voice informed DeJesus that it was a strike. Before this, calling a strike had required a subjective assessment by the umpire. If the batter did not hit the ball, a pitch passing through the strike zone - a perceived area about seventeen inches wide from the batter's knees to the middle of the chest - counted as a strike. In that first game, after DeJesus made the calls, there was no heckling and no shouted objection. The response was total silence.

For roughly 150 years, the strike zone has been one of baseball's driving forces, producing numerous disputes between managers and umpires about its limits and whether a ball had travelled through it. The rules of behaviour have changed over time. Today, everyone understands that a manager may shout disagreement directly at an umpire, but must not use personal abuse or make physical contact. When robo-umpires arrived, however, those arguments disappeared.

Players complained about some unusual calls during the first season with robo-umpires. MLB responded by adjusting the dimensions of the zone, and in the next year there was general agreement that ABS was highly consistent. According to MLB, the device is almost perfect and accurate to within tiny fractions of an inch. Rob Manfred, the MLB Commissioner, says it will reduce controversy and benefit the game. The issue, however, is whether reducing controversy is desirable or whether controversy reveals the presence of a human hand.

A person, at least, can shout back. Frank Viola, a coach for a North Carolina team, told me that ABS performs as intended, but that it is also unforgiving and excessively exact, almost like a legal code. Viola pointed out that Manfred is a lawyer. Some pitchers say the robot's strike zone feels too precise compared with a human one. Viola, formerly a major-league player, explained that umpires used to reward skill when he was pitching: if the pitcher put the ball where he intended, it could be called a strike even one or two inches outside the zone. There was a dialogue between pitcher and umpire.

The MLB executive responsible for the experiment is Morgan Sword, head of baseball operations. Sword says ABS formed part of a wider attempt to make baseball more exciting because executives fear losing younger fans, as horse racing and boxing have done. The process began by asking fans what kind of baseball they found most exciting. Their answers favoured more action: more hits, more defence and more baserunning. That style has largely been absent since the 1960s, when the hundred-mile-an-hour fastball, hard to hit and hard to control, entered the sport. It reduced the game to strikeouts, walks and home runs, a pattern with little action.

Sword's group considered possible remedies. They discussed changing almost any existing rule, from the bats to the shape of the field. Those ideas were rejected as solutions, but ABS was viewed as an ideal way to make change possible. Sword argues that once the technology works, any strike zone can be entered into the system. It could be a triangle, a blob or even a shape like Texas. As baseball changes over time, ABS makes changes to the shape of the strike zone feasible.

Over the past two decades, sport has moved away from judgement calls. Soccer uses Video Assistant Referees for decisions such as offside, tennis uses Hawk-Eye for line calls, and baseball has used instant replay on the bases for nearly ten years. Fans generally like these systems, although their precision can sometimes create difficulties. These examples deal with physical things: bases, lines and goals. Their boundaries are exact, like piano keys. ABS and the strike zone are different. In baseball, a degree of discretion has traditionally been valued. I emailed Alva Noe, a professor at Berkeley University and a baseball supporter, to ask for his opinion. He replied that hardly a day passed without him thinking through why robo-umpires were such a bad idea. Later he told me that this was part of a broader movement to use algorithms to remove life's difficult choices. He may be right. We watch baseball to pass time, not to maximise it. Some players I have met also object to the robots because they believe accuracy is not the answer. Joe Russo, who plays for a New Jersey team, says technology makes people want everything perfect, but that is not reality. In his view, perfection would be strange: teams always winning, work always going well, money always available and cars never breaking down. What, he asks, would there be to talk about?

A few years ago, Fred DeJesus of Brooklyn, New York, became the first umpire in a minor-league baseball game to work with the Automated Ball-Strike System (ABS), commonly called the robo-umpire. Rather than decide for himself whether a pitch was a strike*, DeJesus received the decision through an earpiece linked to a modified missile-tracking system. The machine, fixed above the press stand, resembled a large black pizza box with one glowing green eye.

Major League Baseball (MLB), which had ordered the system, still wanted human umpires to announce the calls, just as they had done in their former roles. On the first pitch, a recorded voice informed DeJesus that it was a strike. Before this, calling a strike had required a subjective assessment by the umpire. If the batter did not hit the ball, a pitch passing through the strike zone - a perceived area about seventeen inches wide from the batter's knees to the middle of the chest - counted as a strike. In that first game, after DeJesus made the calls, there was no heckling and no shouted objection. The response was total silence.

For roughly 150 years, the strike zone has been one of baseball's driving forces, producing numerous disputes between managers and umpires about its limits and whether a ball had travelled through it. The rules of behaviour have changed over time. Today, everyone understands that a manager may shout disagreement directly at an umpire, but must not use personal abuse or make physical contact. When robo-umpires arrived, however, those arguments disappeared.

Players complained about some unusual calls during the first season with robo-umpires. MLB responded by adjusting the dimensions of the zone, and in the next year there was general agreement that ABS was highly consistent. According to MLB, the device is almost perfect and accurate to within tiny fractions of an inch. Rob Manfred, the MLB Commissioner, says it will reduce controversy and benefit the game. The issue, however, is whether reducing controversy is desirable or whether controversy reveals the presence of a human hand.

A person, at least, can shout back. Frank Viola, a coach for a North Carolina team, told me that ABS performs as intended, but that it is also unforgiving and excessively exact, almost like a legal code. Viola pointed out that Manfred is a lawyer. Some pitchers say the robot's strike zone feels too precise compared with a human one. Viola, formerly a major-league player, explained that umpires used to reward skill when he was pitching: if the pitcher put the ball where he intended, it could be called a strike even one or two inches outside the zone. There was a dialogue between pitcher and umpire.

The MLB executive responsible for the experiment is Morgan Sword, head of baseball operations. Sword says ABS formed part of a wider attempt to make baseball more exciting because executives fear losing younger fans, as horse racing and boxing have done. The process began by asking fans what kind of baseball they found most exciting. Their answers favoured more action: more hits, more defence and more baserunning. That style has largely been absent since the 1960s, when the hundred-mile-an-hour fastball, hard to hit and hard to control, entered the sport. It reduced the game to strikeouts, walks and home runs, a pattern with little action.

Sword's group considered possible remedies. They discussed changing almost any existing rule, from the bats to the shape of the field. Those ideas were rejected as solutions, but ABS was viewed as an ideal way to make change possible. Sword argues that once the technology works, any strike zone can be entered into the system. It could be a triangle, a blob or even a shape like Texas. As baseball changes over time, ABS makes changes to the shape of the strike zone feasible.

Over the past two decades, sport has moved away from judgement calls. Soccer uses Video Assistant Referees for decisions such as offside, tennis uses Hawk-Eye for line calls, and baseball has used instant replay on the bases for nearly ten years. Fans generally like these systems, although their precision can sometimes create difficulties. These examples deal with physical things: bases, lines and goals. Their boundaries are exact, like piano keys. ABS and the strike zone are different. In baseball, a degree of discretion has traditionally been valued. I emailed Alva Noe, a professor at Berkeley University and a baseball supporter, to ask for his opinion. He replied that hardly a day passed without him thinking through why robo-umpires were such a bad idea. Later he told me that this was part of a broader movement to use algorithms to remove life's difficult choices. He may be right. We watch baseball to pass time, not to maximise it. Some players I have met also object to the robots because they believe accuracy is not the answer. Joe Russo, who plays for a New Jersey team, says technology makes people want everything perfect, but that is not reality. In his view, perfection would be strange: teams always winning, work always going well, money always available and cars never breaking down. What, he asks, would there be to talk about?

A few years ago, Fred DeJesus of Brooklyn, New York, became the first umpire in a minor-league baseball game to work with the Automated Ball-Strike System (ABS), commonly called the robo-umpire. Rather than decide for himself whether a pitch was a strike*, DeJesus received the decision through an earpiece linked to a modified missile-tracking system. The machine, fixed above the press stand, resembled a large black pizza box with one glowing green eye.

Major League Baseball (MLB), which had ordered the system, still wanted human umpires to announce the calls, just as they had done in their former roles. On the first pitch, a recorded voice informed DeJesus that it was a strike. Before this, calling a strike had required a subjective assessment by the umpire. If the batter did not hit the ball, a pitch passing through the strike zone - a perceived area about seventeen inches wide from the batter's knees to the middle of the chest - counted as a strike. In that first game, after DeJesus made the calls, there was no heckling and no shouted objection. The response was total silence.

For roughly 150 years, the strike zone has been one of baseball's driving forces, producing numerous disputes between managers and umpires about its limits and whether a ball had travelled through it. The rules of behaviour have changed over time. Today, everyone understands that a manager may shout disagreement directly at an umpire, but must not use personal abuse or make physical contact. When robo-umpires arrived, however, those arguments disappeared.

Players complained about some unusual calls during the first season with robo-umpires. MLB responded by adjusting the dimensions of the zone, and in the next year there was general agreement that ABS was highly consistent. According to MLB, the device is almost perfect and accurate to within tiny fractions of an inch. Rob Manfred, the MLB Commissioner, says it will reduce controversy and benefit the game. The issue, however, is whether reducing controversy is desirable or whether controversy reveals the presence of a human hand.

A person, at least, can shout back. Frank Viola, a coach for a North Carolina team, told me that ABS performs as intended, but that it is also unforgiving and excessively exact, almost like a legal code. Viola pointed out that Manfred is a lawyer. Some pitchers say the robot's strike zone feels too precise compared with a human one. Viola, formerly a major-league player, explained that umpires used to reward skill when he was pitching: if the pitcher put the ball where he intended, it could be called a strike even one or two inches outside the zone. There was a dialogue between pitcher and umpire.

The MLB executive responsible for the experiment is Morgan Sword, head of baseball operations. Sword says ABS formed part of a wider attempt to make baseball more exciting because executives fear losing younger fans, as horse racing and boxing have done. The process began by asking fans what kind of baseball they found most exciting. Their answers favoured more action: more hits, more defence and more baserunning. That style has largely been absent since the 1960s, when the hundred-mile-an-hour fastball, hard to hit and hard to control, entered the sport. It reduced the game to strikeouts, walks and home runs, a pattern with little action.

Sword's group considered possible remedies. They discussed changing almost any existing rule, from the bats to the shape of the field. Those ideas were rejected as solutions, but ABS was viewed as an ideal way to make change possible. Sword argues that once the technology works, any strike zone can be entered into the system. It could be a triangle, a blob or even a shape like Texas. As baseball changes over time, ABS makes changes to the shape of the strike zone feasible.

Over the past two decades, sport has moved away from judgement calls. Soccer uses Video Assistant Referees for decisions such as offside, tennis uses Hawk-Eye for line calls, and baseball has used instant replay on the bases for nearly ten years. Fans generally like these systems, although their precision can sometimes create difficulties. These examples deal with physical things: bases, lines and goals. Their boundaries are exact, like piano keys. ABS and the strike zone are different. In baseball, a degree of discretion has traditionally been valued. I emailed Alva Noe, a professor at Berkeley University and a baseball supporter, to ask for his opinion. He replied that hardly a day passed without him thinking through why robo-umpires were such a bad idea. Later he told me that this was part of a broader movement to use algorithms to remove life's difficult choices. He may be right. We watch baseball to pass time, not to maximise it. Some players I have met also object to the robots because they believe accuracy is not the answer. Joe Russo, who plays for a New Jersey team, says technology makes people want everything perfect, but that is not reality. In his view, perfection would be strange: teams always winning, work always going well, money always available and cars never breaking down. What, he asks, would there be to talk about?

Three specialists give their views on how human beings may live and work with robots.

Asked whether robots should be used to colonise other planets and extract mineral resources, engineering professor Daniel Wolpert said he saw no urgent reason to settle other worlds unless their resources could be brought back to Earth. Since so much of our own planet remains beyond human reach, he argued, using robotic tools to gather resources nearer to home would be a more sensible priority.

Anthropology professor Kathleen Richardson approached the same issue as an ethical one. To her, the language of colonisation sounded morally questionable. Whether humans act on Earth or Mars, she said, they should proceed out of genuine curiosity about "the Other", not by forcing one model on it but by trying to encounter it on its own terms.

Cosmology and astrophysics professor Martin Rees offered a different emphasis. He expected robotic craft to map the solar system by the end of this century, followed by asteroid mining that would make it possible to build large structures in space without transporting every raw material from Earth. In his view, that was more realistic and benign than the wholesale terraforming of planets. Any worlds that humans colonise, he added, should be protected with a status comparable to Antarctica on Earth.

On the question of whether machine intelligence will overtake human intelligence, Wolpert said that, in limited ways, it already has. Machines can navigate, remember and search for items far better than people. However, no machine can yet identify visual objects or speech with the reliability and flexibility of humans. Expecting a machine close to the creative intelligence of a human within the next 50 years would be highly ambitious.

Rees also considered future machine intelligence, noting that some robots can already defeat humans at chess. Yet he stressed that robots still struggle to sense and interact with their environment: they cannot recognise and move pieces on a physical chessboard as skilfully as a child can. Later this century, more advanced successors may deal with surroundings and people as adeptly as humans do. Moral questions then arise: should we feel guilty about exploiting sophisticated robots, or worry if they are underemployed, frustrated or bored?

Richardson argued that anxiety about machines becoming too powerful says more about people than about machines. Humans tend to personify inanimate objects: they build machines in their own image, imagine that machines think and act as humans do, and then regard them as autonomous threats. One result, she suggested, is that when people assume the problem lies with machines, they imagine machines as stronger and more capable than they really are.

When asked whether advances in artificial intelligence should frighten us, Rees said that the people most likely to worry are futurologists who believe in the so-called singularity. A further concern, he added, is our growing dependence on computer networks, which might behave like a single brain with a mind of its own and goals opposed to human welfare. He believed robots should remain no more than "idiot savants", lacking the capacity to outwit humans even if they become far better at calculation and information processing.

Wolpert answered the same question by pointing to computer viruses as one damaging form of artificial intelligence. Even there, he said, the real intelligence belongs to the malicious human designer. The advantages of computers still outweigh the harm caused by viruses, and he expected the same pattern with robotics: although robots may be misused in the near future, their benefits are likely to be greater than the negative aspects.

Richardson, however, asked why fears about artificial intelligence and robots persist at all, since no robots have risen up and challenged human supremacy. Because robots have not proved to be a danger to people, she thought it unlikely that they ever would. She added that not everyone fears robots; many people welcome machine intelligence.

Asked what science fiction can tell us about robotics, Rees said he sometimes advises students to read first-rate science fiction before second-rate science, because it is more stimulating and may be no more likely to be wrong. Wolpert said science fiction has often been strikingly successful in predicting the future. It has imagined a wide range of possibilities, from charming, helpful robots to dystopian robot societies, but almost no science fiction envisages a future without robots.

Richardson's final response concerned the boundary between reality and fantasy. Modern society, she said, often treats reality as one thing and fiction or fantasy as another. That split was not always present; scientists and technologists helped create it because they wanted to define the sphere of their own work. But the divide is not clear cut, and the worlds sometimes collide. In some cases, she argued, different understandings must be brought together to create a fuller perspective. Perhaps then people would be less afraid that something made as a copy of ourselves might become a threat to us.

A psychologist explains why important tasks are postponed and how the habit can be broken.

Procrastination is the pattern of putting off a necessary task, often by turning instead to activities that are easier, more pleasant and less urgent. Most people do this occasionally. We may delay writing a difficult message to a friend or avoid finishing an important report for study or work; although we try to escape the task in front of us, we know at some level that we should simply begin. Unfortunately, criticising ourselves harshly is unlikely to prevent future procrastination. It is, in fact, among the least helpful responses. This is important because my research indicates that procrastination wastes time and is also connected with other problems.

Popular opinion often blames procrastination on laziness or poor time management, but research points elsewhere. Scientific studies indicate that procrastination is really a problem of poor mood management. This is understandable because people are more likely to delay tasks they strongly dislike. If merely thinking about the work threatens their self-worth or makes them anxious, postponement becomes more likely. Brain-imaging research has also shown that, in chronic procrastinators, regions involved in detecting threats and regulating emotions differ from those in people who procrastinate less often.

Emotionally demanding or difficult tasks are especially likely to be postponed; preparing for exams is a clear example. People with low self-esteem often procrastinate, and perfectionists are another group who do so because they fear that others will judge their work severely. If a report is not finished or a repair is not completed, then the result cannot be evaluated. Avoiding the task also means avoiding the unpleasant feelings attached to it. That relief is rewarding and trains us to use procrastination as a way to improve our mood. Doing something more enjoyable gives a further emotional lift. Over time, however, procrastination fails as an emotion-management strategy. The mood repair is brief, and afterwards people are often left with guilt, which deepens negative mood and strengthens the habit of procrastinating again.

Why does this matter so much? Many people think first of lost productivity. Studies show, for instance, that procrastination harms student performance. Yet delaying textbooks and essays can influence other parts of student life too. In a six-month study of more than 3,000 German students, those who said they procrastinated over university work were also more likely to report study-related misconduct such as cheating and plagiarism. The behaviour most closely associated with procrastination was using fraudulent excuses to obtain deadline extensions. Workplace research shows similar costs. Employees spend almost a quarter of the working day procrastinating on average, and this is linked with poor outcomes. In a United States survey of more than 22,000 employees, regular procrastinators had less annual income and less employment stability. Each one-point rise on a chronic procrastination scale was associated with a US$15,000 fall in annual income.

Procrastination is also associated with serious health and well-being difficulties. A tendency to procrastinate is linked with poorer mental health, including higher levels of depression and anxiety. Across many studies, I have found that regular procrastinators report more health problems, including headaches, flu, colds and digestive issues. They also report higher stress and poorer sleep quality. They are less likely to follow healthy habits, such as eating well and exercising regularly, and they rely more on destructive ways of coping with stress. In one study of over 700 people, those prone to procrastination had a 63% higher risk of poor heart health, even after other personality traits and demographic factors were taken into account.

One way out of the procrastination cycle is to find better methods for handling emotions. A useful first step is to manage both our surroundings and our interpretation of the task. Several evidence-based strategies can help us resist distractions that fill our attention when we ought to be working. For example, reminding ourselves why the task is important and valuable can make our feelings about it more positive. Self-forgiveness and compassion when we procrastinate can also interrupt the cycle. We should acknowledge that we feel bad without being too critical of ourselves. It also helps to remember that we are not the first person to procrastinate and will not be the last. This reduces the intensity of negative feelings about ourselves when we procrastinate and makes it easier to return to the task.

That was the pattern when the firefighters were relaxed.

They became highly alert to bad news, even when it was unrelated to their work, such as a higher-than-expected chance of card fraud, and they changed their beliefs accordingly.

Stress did not alter their response to good news, such as learning that the chance of card fraud was lower than expected.

Their cortisol levels rose, their heart rates increased and they suddenly became better at taking in unrelated but alarming information about disease and violence.

Their cortisol levels rose, their heart rates increased and they suddenly became better at taking in unrelated but alarming information about disease and violence.

Wetlands are places where water lies on the soil, or remains at or close to the soil surface, for some or all of the year. They are intricate ecosystems containing distinctive plants and animals. Yet the World Wide Fund for Nature reports that half of the world's wetlands have disappeared since 1990, after being converted or destroyed for commercial building, drainage, mineral extraction and peat removal. Many surviving wetlands have also been harmed by farm chemicals, industrial pollution and construction.

Human communities have long settled around wetlands, whose fertile systems have contributed greatly to human development. As a result, they hold major religious, historical and archaeological importance for many societies. Dr Matthew McCartney, a principal researcher and hydrologist at the International Water Management Institute, says wetlands directly sustain the livelihoods and well-being of millions of people. In many developing nations, large populations depend on wetland agriculture to make a living.

Wetlands also perform an essential environmental role. Pieter van Eijk, head of Climate Adaptation at Wetlands International, describes them as key tools for reducing the effects of climate change worldwide. They act as buffers, helping protect coasts from rising seas and extreme weather such as hurricanes and floods. Wetland coastal forests supply food, water and shelter from storms, and agencies are trying to restore forests that have been lost. Van Eijk notes that restoration can be as simple as planting a few trees per hectare to create shade and change a microclimate; climate projects are not necessarily about large sums of money.

Unfortunately, wetlands contain commodities that are in high demand, including palm oil and pulpwood. Peatlands, which are wetlands with waterlogged organic soils, are especially vulnerable. When peatlands are drained for cultivation, they become net Carbon emitters instead of active Carbon stores, and Marcel Silvius of Wetlands International says this accounts for six per cent of global Carbon emissions. Clearing peatlands for plantations also raises the risk of forest Fires, which release large amounts of CO2. Silvius warns that peatland forests of extremely high Biodiversity value are being lost for only a few decades of oil-palm income.

Damage often begins when logging companies clear trees. They dig Ditches so boats can enter peat swamps and float logs out, and the same Ditches then drain water from the peatlands for planting corn, oil palms or pulpwood trees. Once the water has gone, bacteria and fungi break down the peat's Carbon into CO2 and methane. The remaining solid peat also sinks downward, a process known as Subsidence. Because peat is about 90 per cent water, this is one of the most serious results of clearing peatlands. Silvius says tropical peat can sink around four centimetres each year, so within 50 years large areas of Sumatra and Borneo may fall below water level and flood, with some provinces losing 40 per cent of their landmass.

While such industries leave damage that can be recorded, Dr Dave Tickner of the World Wide Fund for Nature argues that less visible impacts may be even more destructive. Sediment run-off, fertilisers and over-extraction of water can be hard to see. Dramatic stories of red rivers or burning rivers occur, but a wetland is rarely damaged by one single obvious event. Tickner says he has never met anyone who deliberately wanted to harm a wetland; often, the effects simply arise from people trying to make a living.

Silvius also recognises the importance of income generation. He argues that restoration is not only about bringing back wetland Biodiversity, although that matters, but also about providing income for local people. McCartney supports this view: people in developing countries will protect wetlands only if they value and profit from them. For sustainability, local people must take part in wetland planning and decision making, and they need clear rights to use wetlands.

Silvius suggests wetlands would fare better if more governments acknowledged their long-term value. Different governments have different attitudes: some give wetland restoration high priority, while others continue to deny the problem. McCartney is cautiously hopeful, saying awareness of the importance of wetlands is growing. Although wetland degradation is still rapid, he believes conditions are slowly beginning to change.

Wetlands are places where water lies on the soil, or remains at or close to the soil surface, for some or all of the year. They are intricate ecosystems containing distinctive plants and animals. Yet the World Wide Fund for Nature reports that half of the world's wetlands have disappeared since 1990, after being converted or destroyed for commercial building, drainage, mineral extraction and peat removal. Many surviving wetlands have also been harmed by farm chemicals, industrial pollution and construction.

Human communities have long settled around wetlands, whose fertile systems have contributed greatly to human development. As a result, they hold major religious, historical and archaeological importance for many societies. Dr Matthew McCartney, a principal researcher and hydrologist at the International Water Management Institute, says wetlands directly sustain the livelihoods and well-being of millions of people. In many developing nations, large populations depend on wetland agriculture to make a living.

Wetlands also perform an essential environmental role. Pieter van Eijk, head of Climate Adaptation at Wetlands International, describes them as key tools for reducing the effects of climate change worldwide. They act as buffers, helping protect coasts from rising seas and extreme weather such as hurricanes and floods. Wetland coastal forests supply food, water and shelter from storms, and agencies are trying to restore forests that have been lost. Van Eijk notes that restoration can be as simple as planting a few trees per hectare to create shade and change a microclimate; climate projects are not necessarily about large sums of money.

Unfortunately, wetlands contain commodities that are in high demand, including palm oil and pulpwood. Peatlands, which are wetlands with waterlogged organic soils, are especially vulnerable. When peatlands are drained for cultivation, they become net Carbon emitters instead of active Carbon stores, and Marcel Silvius of Wetlands International says this accounts for six per cent of global Carbon emissions. Clearing peatlands for plantations also raises the risk of forest Fires, which release large amounts of CO2. Silvius warns that peatland forests of extremely high Biodiversity value are being lost for only a few decades of oil-palm income.

Damage often begins when logging companies clear trees. They dig Ditches so boats can enter peat swamps and float logs out, and the same Ditches then drain water from the peatlands for planting corn, oil palms or pulpwood trees. Once the water has gone, bacteria and fungi break down the peat's Carbon into CO2 and methane. The remaining solid peat also sinks downward, a process known as Subsidence. Because peat is about 90 per cent water, this is one of the most serious results of clearing peatlands. Silvius says tropical peat can sink around four centimetres each year, so within 50 years large areas of Sumatra and Borneo may fall below water level and flood, with some provinces losing 40 per cent of their landmass.

While such industries leave damage that can be recorded, Dr Dave Tickner of the World Wide Fund for Nature argues that less visible impacts may be even more destructive. Sediment run-off, fertilisers and over-extraction of water can be hard to see. Dramatic stories of red rivers or burning rivers occur, but a wetland is rarely damaged by one single obvious event. Tickner says he has never met anyone who deliberately wanted to harm a wetland; often, the effects simply arise from people trying to make a living.

Silvius also recognises the importance of income generation. He argues that restoration is not only about bringing back wetland Biodiversity, although that matters, but also about providing income for local people. McCartney supports this view: people in developing countries will protect wetlands only if they value and profit from them. For sustainability, local people must take part in wetland planning and decision making, and they need clear rights to use wetlands.

Silvius suggests wetlands would fare better if more governments acknowledged their long-term value. Different governments have different attitudes: some give wetland restoration high priority, while others continue to deny the problem. McCartney is cautiously hopeful, saying awareness of the importance of wetlands is growing. Although wetland degradation is still rapid, he believes conditions are slowly beginning to change.

Wetlands are places where water lies on the soil, or remains at or close to the soil surface, for some or all of the year. They are intricate ecosystems containing distinctive plants and animals. Yet the World Wide Fund for Nature reports that half of the world's wetlands have disappeared since 1990, after being converted or destroyed for commercial building, drainage, mineral extraction and peat removal. Many surviving wetlands have also been harmed by farm chemicals, industrial pollution and construction.

Human communities have long settled around wetlands, whose fertile systems have contributed greatly to human development. As a result, they hold major religious, historical and archaeological importance for many societies. Dr Matthew McCartney, a principal researcher and hydrologist at the International Water Management Institute, says wetlands directly sustain the livelihoods and well-being of millions of people. In many developing nations, large populations depend on wetland agriculture to make a living.

Wetlands also perform an essential environmental role. Pieter van Eijk, head of Climate Adaptation at Wetlands International, describes them as key tools for reducing the effects of climate change worldwide. They act as buffers, helping protect coasts from rising seas and extreme weather such as hurricanes and floods. Wetland coastal forests supply food, water and shelter from storms, and agencies are trying to restore forests that have been lost. Van Eijk notes that restoration can be as simple as planting a few trees per hectare to create shade and change a microclimate; climate projects are not necessarily about large sums of money.

Unfortunately, wetlands contain commodities that are in high demand, including palm oil and pulpwood. Peatlands, which are wetlands with waterlogged organic soils, are especially vulnerable. When peatlands are drained for cultivation, they become net Carbon emitters instead of active Carbon stores, and Marcel Silvius of Wetlands International says this accounts for six per cent of global Carbon emissions. Clearing peatlands for plantations also raises the risk of forest Fires, which release large amounts of CO2. Silvius warns that peatland forests of extremely high Biodiversity value are being lost for only a few decades of oil-palm income.

Damage often begins when logging companies clear trees. They dig Ditches so boats can enter peat swamps and float logs out, and the same Ditches then drain water from the peatlands for planting corn, oil palms or pulpwood trees. Once the water has gone, bacteria and fungi break down the peat's Carbon into CO2 and methane. The remaining solid peat also sinks downward, a process known as Subsidence. Because peat is about 90 per cent water, this is one of the most serious results of clearing peatlands. Silvius says tropical peat can sink around four centimetres each year, so within 50 years large areas of Sumatra and Borneo may fall below water level and flood, with some provinces losing 40 per cent of their landmass.

While such industries leave damage that can be recorded, Dr Dave Tickner of the World Wide Fund for Nature argues that less visible impacts may be even more destructive. Sediment run-off, fertilisers and over-extraction of water can be hard to see. Dramatic stories of red rivers or burning rivers occur, but a wetland is rarely damaged by one single obvious event. Tickner says he has never met anyone who deliberately wanted to harm a wetland; often, the effects simply arise from people trying to make a living.

Silvius also recognises the importance of income generation. He argues that restoration is not only about bringing back wetland Biodiversity, although that matters, but also about providing income for local people. McCartney supports this view: people in developing countries will protect wetlands only if they value and profit from them. For sustainability, local people must take part in wetland planning and decision making, and they need clear rights to use wetlands.

Silvius suggests wetlands would fare better if more governments acknowledged their long-term value. Different governments have different attitudes: some give wetland restoration high priority, while others continue to deny the problem. McCartney is cautiously hopeful, saying awareness of the importance of wetlands is growing. Although wetland degradation is still rapid, he believes conditions are slowly beginning to change.

Wetlands are places where water lies on the soil, or remains at or close to the soil surface, for some or all of the year. They are intricate ecosystems containing distinctive plants and animals. Yet the World Wide Fund for Nature reports that half of the world's wetlands have disappeared since 1990, after being converted or destroyed for commercial building, drainage, mineral extraction and peat removal. Many surviving wetlands have also been harmed by farm chemicals, industrial pollution and construction.

Human communities have long settled around wetlands, whose fertile systems have contributed greatly to human development. As a result, they hold major religious, historical and archaeological importance for many societies. Dr Matthew McCartney, a principal researcher and hydrologist at the International Water Management Institute, says wetlands directly sustain the livelihoods and well-being of millions of people. In many developing nations, large populations depend on wetland agriculture to make a living.

Wetlands also perform an essential environmental role. Pieter van Eijk, head of Climate Adaptation at Wetlands International, describes them as key tools for reducing the effects of climate change worldwide. They act as buffers, helping protect coasts from rising seas and extreme weather such as hurricanes and floods. Wetland coastal forests supply food, water and shelter from storms, and agencies are trying to restore forests that have been lost. Van Eijk notes that restoration can be as simple as planting a few trees per hectare to create shade and change a microclimate; climate projects are not necessarily about large sums of money.

Unfortunately, wetlands contain commodities that are in high demand, including palm oil and pulpwood. Peatlands, which are wetlands with waterlogged organic soils, are especially vulnerable. When peatlands are drained for cultivation, they become net Carbon emitters instead of active Carbon stores, and Marcel Silvius of Wetlands International says this accounts for six per cent of global Carbon emissions. Clearing peatlands for plantations also raises the risk of forest Fires, which release large amounts of CO2. Silvius warns that peatland forests of extremely high Biodiversity value are being lost for only a few decades of oil-palm income.

Damage often begins when logging companies clear trees. They dig Ditches so boats can enter peat swamps and float logs out, and the same Ditches then drain water from the peatlands for planting corn, oil palms or pulpwood trees. Once the water has gone, bacteria and fungi break down the peat's Carbon into CO2 and methane. The remaining solid peat also sinks downward, a process known as Subsidence. Because peat is about 90 per cent water, this is one of the most serious results of clearing peatlands. Silvius says tropical peat can sink around four centimetres each year, so within 50 years large areas of Sumatra and Borneo may fall below water level and flood, with some provinces losing 40 per cent of their landmass.

While such industries leave damage that can be recorded, Dr Dave Tickner of the World Wide Fund for Nature argues that less visible impacts may be even more destructive. Sediment run-off, fertilisers and over-extraction of water can be hard to see. Dramatic stories of red rivers or burning rivers occur, but a wetland is rarely damaged by one single obvious event. Tickner says he has never met anyone who deliberately wanted to harm a wetland; often, the effects simply arise from people trying to make a living.

Silvius also recognises the importance of income generation. He argues that restoration is not only about bringing back wetland Biodiversity, although that matters, but also about providing income for local people. McCartney supports this view: people in developing countries will protect wetlands only if they value and profit from them. For sustainability, local people must take part in wetland planning and decision making, and they need clear rights to use wetlands.

Silvius suggests wetlands would fare better if more governments acknowledged their long-term value. Different governments have different attitudes: some give wetland restoration high priority, while others continue to deny the problem. McCartney is cautiously hopeful, saying awareness of the importance of wetlands is growing. Although wetland degradation is still rapid, he believes conditions are slowly beginning to change.

Wetlands are places where water lies on the soil, or remains at or close to the soil surface, for some or all of the year. They are intricate ecosystems containing distinctive plants and animals. Yet the World Wide Fund for Nature reports that half of the world's wetlands have disappeared since 1990, after being converted or destroyed for commercial building, drainage, mineral extraction and peat removal. Many surviving wetlands have also been harmed by farm chemicals, industrial pollution and construction.

Human communities have long settled around wetlands, whose fertile systems have contributed greatly to human development. As a result, they hold major religious, historical and archaeological importance for many societies. Dr Matthew McCartney, a principal researcher and hydrologist at the International Water Management Institute, says wetlands directly sustain the livelihoods and well-being of millions of people. In many developing nations, large populations depend on wetland agriculture to make a living.

Wetlands also perform an essential environmental role. Pieter van Eijk, head of Climate Adaptation at Wetlands International, describes them as key tools for reducing the effects of climate change worldwide. They act as buffers, helping protect coasts from rising seas and extreme weather such as hurricanes and floods. Wetland coastal forests supply food, water and shelter from storms, and agencies are trying to restore forests that have been lost. Van Eijk notes that restoration can be as simple as planting a few trees per hectare to create shade and change a microclimate; climate projects are not necessarily about large sums of money.

Unfortunately, wetlands contain commodities that are in high demand, including palm oil and pulpwood. Peatlands, which are wetlands with waterlogged organic soils, are especially vulnerable. When peatlands are drained for cultivation, they become net Carbon emitters instead of active Carbon stores, and Marcel Silvius of Wetlands International says this accounts for six per cent of global Carbon emissions. Clearing peatlands for plantations also raises the risk of forest Fires, which release large amounts of CO2. Silvius warns that peatland forests of extremely high Biodiversity value are being lost for only a few decades of oil-palm income.

Damage often begins when logging companies clear trees. They dig Ditches so boats can enter peat swamps and float logs out, and the same Ditches then drain water from the peatlands for planting corn, oil palms or pulpwood trees. Once the water has gone, bacteria and fungi break down the peat's Carbon into CO2 and methane. The remaining solid peat also sinks downward, a process known as Subsidence. Because peat is about 90 per cent water, this is one of the most serious results of clearing peatlands. Silvius says tropical peat can sink around four centimetres each year, so within 50 years large areas of Sumatra and Borneo may fall below water level and flood, with some provinces losing 40 per cent of their landmass.

While such industries leave damage that can be recorded, Dr Dave Tickner of the World Wide Fund for Nature argues that less visible impacts may be even more destructive. Sediment run-off, fertilisers and over-extraction of water can be hard to see. Dramatic stories of red rivers or burning rivers occur, but a wetland is rarely damaged by one single obvious event. Tickner says he has never met anyone who deliberately wanted to harm a wetland; often, the effects simply arise from people trying to make a living.

Silvius also recognises the importance of income generation. He argues that restoration is not only about bringing back wetland Biodiversity, although that matters, but also about providing income for local people. McCartney supports this view: people in developing countries will protect wetlands only if they value and profit from them. For sustainability, local people must take part in wetland planning and decision making, and they need clear rights to use wetlands.

Silvius suggests wetlands would fare better if more governments acknowledged their long-term value. Different governments have different attitudes: some give wetland restoration high priority, while others continue to deny the problem. McCartney is cautiously hopeful, saying awareness of the importance of wetlands is growing. Although wetland degradation is still rapid, he believes conditions are slowly beginning to change.

In Paris, urban growers are testing a soil-free agriculture system that uses less land and fewer resources, raising the question of whether cities can make food supplies more secure.

On a new exhibition hall in southern Paris, the world's largest urban rooftop farm is producing crops. Strawberries grow from hollow plastic tubes, their roots hanging inside. From matching vertical tubes nearby came rows of lettuces; close by were aromatic herbs such as basil, sage and peppermint. Coconut fibre trays hold cherry tomatoes, aubergines and chards.

Pascal Hardy, an engineer and sustainable development consultant, began testing vertical farming and aeroponic growing towers five years ago. The rooftop site is 14,000 square metres, almost two football pitches. The farmers have already picked 3,000 lettuces and 150 punnets of strawberries in a day. Once the remaining two thirds is in production, 20 workers are expected to harvest up to 1000 kg of perhaps 35 varieties of fruit and vegetables each day. Hardy says the method will not feed the whole city, but enough unused space might supply 5% to 10% of consumption.

The roof also demonstrates Hardy's consultancy, Agripolis, which designs soil-free inner-city farms. Hardy dislikes intensive farming because produce is treated with around 17 different pesticides and because intensive techniques produce greenhouse gases. He also objects to food travelling 2,000 refrigerated kilometres, varieties being chosen to survive long journeys rather than for quality, and producers receiving only a small share of the final price.

Soil-free produce uses a little water with organic nutrients moving through a closed network of pipes, towers and trays. It is grown and sold locally, so it barely travels. Growers can choose varieties for flavour rather than for resistance to transport and storage, and can pick them when fully ready. The water sprayed on roots every 12 minutes is recycled, so the method uses 90 percent less water than a conventional intensive farm with the same yield.

Urban farming is expanding in many cities. As the Paris rooftop shows and as mushrooms in underground carparks also demonstrate, urban farming can happen above or below ground. Strawberries are grown in disused shipping containers. Aeroponic equipment is light, can be fitted to almost any flat surface and costs about 100 to 150 euros per square metre. It is inexpensive to operate as well, using only a tiny fraction of the electricity required by some other methods.

Produce grown in this way usually sells for prices that are higher than classic intensive farming but lower than those charged by soil-based organic growers. There are limits to what can be cultivated, of course, and much of the produce is suited to the summer months. Hardy says radishes are possible, but carrots and potatoes have roots that are too long; fruit trees are impossible and beans need too much space for the return.

In Paris, urban growers are testing a soil-free agriculture system that uses less land and fewer resources, raising the question of whether cities can make food supplies more secure.

On a new exhibition hall in southern Paris, the world's largest urban rooftop farm is producing crops. Strawberries grow from hollow plastic tubes, their roots hanging inside. From matching vertical tubes nearby came rows of lettuces; close by were aromatic herbs such as basil, sage and peppermint. Coconut fibre trays hold cherry tomatoes, aubergines and chards.

Pascal Hardy, an engineer and sustainable development consultant, began testing vertical farming and aeroponic growing towers five years ago. The rooftop site is 14,000 square metres, almost two football pitches. The farmers have already picked 3,000 lettuces and 150 punnets of strawberries in a day. Once the remaining two thirds is in production, 20 workers are expected to harvest up to 1000 kg of perhaps 35 varieties of fruit and vegetables each day. Hardy says the method will not feed the whole city, but enough unused space might supply 5% to 10% of consumption.

The roof also demonstrates Hardy's consultancy, Agripolis, which designs soil-free inner-city farms. Hardy dislikes intensive farming because produce is treated with around 17 different pesticides and because intensive techniques produce greenhouse gases. He also objects to food travelling 2,000 refrigerated kilometres, varieties being chosen to survive long journeys rather than for quality, and producers receiving only a small share of the final price.

Soil-free produce uses a little water with organic nutrients moving through a closed network of pipes, towers and trays. It is grown and sold locally, so it barely travels. Growers can choose varieties for flavour rather than for resistance to transport and storage, and can pick them when fully ready. The water sprayed on roots every 12 minutes is recycled, so the method uses 90 percent less water than a conventional intensive farm with the same yield.

Urban farming is expanding in many cities. As the Paris rooftop shows and as mushrooms in underground carparks also demonstrate, urban farming can happen above or below ground. Strawberries are grown in disused shipping containers. Aeroponic equipment is light, can be fitted to almost any flat surface and costs about 100 to 150 euros per square metre. It is inexpensive to operate as well, using only a tiny fraction of the electricity required by some other methods.

Produce grown in this way usually sells for prices that are higher than classic intensive farming but lower than those charged by soil-based organic growers. There are limits to what can be cultivated, of course, and much of the produce is suited to the summer months. Hardy says radishes are possible, but carrots and potatoes have roots that are too long; fruit trees are impossible and beans need too much space for the return.

In Paris, urban growers are testing a soil-free agriculture system that uses less land and fewer resources, raising the question of whether cities can make food supplies more secure.

On a new exhibition hall in southern Paris, the world's largest urban rooftop farm is producing crops. Strawberries grow from hollow plastic tubes, their roots hanging inside. From matching vertical tubes nearby came rows of lettuces; close by were aromatic herbs such as basil, sage and peppermint. Coconut fibre trays hold cherry tomatoes, aubergines and chards.

Pascal Hardy, an engineer and sustainable development consultant, began testing vertical farming and aeroponic growing towers five years ago. The rooftop site is 14,000 square metres, almost two football pitches. The farmers have already picked 3,000 lettuces and 150 punnets of strawberries in a day. Once the remaining two thirds is in production, 20 workers are expected to harvest up to 1000 kg of perhaps 35 varieties of fruit and vegetables each day. Hardy says the method will not feed the whole city, but enough unused space might supply 5% to 10% of consumption.

The roof also demonstrates Hardy's consultancy, Agripolis, which designs soil-free inner-city farms. Hardy dislikes intensive farming because produce is treated with around 17 different pesticides and because intensive techniques produce greenhouse gases. He also objects to food travelling 2,000 refrigerated kilometres, varieties being chosen to survive long journeys rather than for quality, and producers receiving only a small share of the final price.

Soil-free produce uses a little water with organic nutrients moving through a closed network of pipes, towers and trays. It is grown and sold locally, so it barely travels. Growers can choose varieties for flavour rather than for resistance to transport and storage, and can pick them when fully ready. The water sprayed on roots every 12 minutes is recycled, so the method uses 90 percent less water than a conventional intensive farm with the same yield.

Urban farming is expanding in many cities. As the Paris rooftop shows and as mushrooms in underground carparks also demonstrate, urban farming can happen above or below ground. Strawberries are grown in disused shipping containers. Aeroponic equipment is light, can be fitted to almost any flat surface and costs about 100 to 150 euros per square metre. It is inexpensive to operate as well, using only a tiny fraction of the electricity required by some other methods.

Produce grown in this way usually sells for prices that are higher than classic intensive farming but lower than those charged by soil-based organic growers. There are limits to what can be cultivated, of course, and much of the produce is suited to the summer months. Hardy says radishes are possible, but carrots and potatoes have roots that are too long; fruit trees are impossible and beans need too much space for the return.

In Paris, urban growers are testing a soil-free agriculture system that uses less land and fewer resources, raising the question of whether cities can make food supplies more secure.

On a new exhibition hall in southern Paris, the world's largest urban rooftop farm is producing crops. Strawberries grow from hollow plastic tubes, their roots hanging inside. From matching vertical tubes nearby came rows of lettuces; close by were aromatic herbs such as basil, sage and peppermint. Coconut fibre trays hold cherry tomatoes, aubergines and chards.

Pascal Hardy, an engineer and sustainable development consultant, began testing vertical farming and aeroponic growing towers five years ago. The rooftop site is 14,000 square metres, almost two football pitches. The farmers have already picked 3,000 lettuces and 150 punnets of strawberries in a day. Once the remaining two thirds is in production, 20 workers are expected to harvest up to 1000 kg of perhaps 35 varieties of fruit and vegetables each day. Hardy says the method will not feed the whole city, but enough unused space might supply 5% to 10% of consumption.

The roof also demonstrates Hardy's consultancy, Agripolis, which designs soil-free inner-city farms. Hardy dislikes intensive farming because produce is treated with around 17 different pesticides and because intensive techniques produce greenhouse gases. He also objects to food travelling 2,000 refrigerated kilometres, varieties being chosen to survive long journeys rather than for quality, and producers receiving only a small share of the final price.

Soil-free produce uses a little water with organic nutrients moving through a closed network of pipes, towers and trays. It is grown and sold locally, so it barely travels. Growers can choose varieties for flavour rather than for resistance to transport and storage, and can pick them when fully ready. The water sprayed on roots every 12 minutes is recycled, so the method uses 90 percent less water than a conventional intensive farm with the same yield.

Urban farming is expanding in many cities. As the Paris rooftop shows and as mushrooms in underground carparks also demonstrate, urban farming can happen above or below ground. Strawberries are grown in disused shipping containers. Aeroponic equipment is light, can be fitted to almost any flat surface and costs about 100 to 150 euros per square metre. It is inexpensive to operate as well, using only a tiny fraction of the electricity required by some other methods.

Produce grown in this way usually sells for prices that are higher than classic intensive farming but lower than those charged by soil-based organic growers. There are limits to what can be cultivated, of course, and much of the produce is suited to the summer months. Hardy says radishes are possible, but carrots and potatoes have roots that are too long; fruit trees are impossible and beans need too much space for the return.

For hundreds of years, elm was second only to oak as Britain's preferred hardwood, and in many places it was the most noticeable tree in the landscape. It was common not only in European forests but also as an important element of woodlands containing birch, ash and hazel. The use of elm is believed to date back to the Bronze Age, when it was widely used for tools. It was also favoured for shields and early swords. In the eighteenth century, elm was planted more widely, and its timber was used for storage crates and flooring. Because it could withstand heavy impact, it was also used in mining equipment and to build the keel of the nineteenth-century sailing ship Cutty Sark.

For hundreds of years, elm was second only to oak as Britain's preferred hardwood, and in many places it was the most noticeable tree in the landscape. It was common not only in European forests but also as an important element of woodlands containing birch, ash and hazel. The use of elm is believed to date back to the Bronze Age, when it was widely used for tools. It was also favoured for shields and early swords. In the eighteenth century, elm was planted more widely, and its timber was used for storage crates and flooring. Because it could withstand heavy impact, it was also used in mining equipment and to build the keel of the nineteenth-century sailing ship Cutty Sark.

For hundreds of years, elm was second only to oak as Britain's preferred hardwood, and in many places it was the most noticeable tree in the landscape. It was common not only in European forests but also as an important element of woodlands containing birch, ash and hazel. The use of elm is believed to date back to the Bronze Age, when it was widely used for tools. It was also favoured for shields and early swords. In the eighteenth century, elm was planted more widely, and its timber was used for storage crates and flooring. Because it could withstand heavy impact, it was also used in mining equipment and to build the keel of the nineteenth-century sailing ship Cutty Sark.

Sandridge Institute provides several scholarships for overseas applicants who intend to settle in Ireland and require re-training. The scholarships are for full-time study only and are unavailable for any course lasting less than 23 weeks.

Requirements/eligibility Applicants must show strong academic ability through qualifications already earned in their home country. Alternatively, they need at least five years of relevant work experience in their chosen field, supported by references from at least two employers or supervisors.

The award Scholarship awards include return airfares to Ireland from the applicant's home country if the flight distance from the departure city to Fairhaven is no more than 2,650 kilometres. If the journey is longer, airline vouchers will be supplied instead. Travel to and from airports for both outward and return trips is covered, and an airline excess baggage allowance of 135 kg is included.

Scholarship holders do not receive payment for personal removal expenses. If the scholarship holder is married when applying, some travel and removal expenses may be paid for the husband or wife. Any travel costs or support for dependent children must be paid by the scholarship holder.

Scholars may receive help with accommodation in the Fairhaven metropolitan area, but married accommodation is not available on the Redhill Institute campus. Because campus accommodation is always in heavy demand, scholarship applicants should apply at least ten weeks before they plan to move into residence.

Sandridge Institute provides several scholarships for overseas applicants who intend to settle in Ireland and require re-training. The scholarships are for full-time study only and are unavailable for any course lasting less than 23 weeks.

Requirements/eligibility Applicants must show strong academic ability through qualifications already earned in their home country. Alternatively, they need at least five years of relevant work experience in their chosen field, supported by references from at least two employers or supervisors.

The award Scholarship awards include return airfares to Ireland from the applicant's home country if the flight distance from the departure city to Fairhaven is no more than 2,650 kilometres. If the journey is longer, airline vouchers will be supplied instead. Travel to and from airports for both outward and return trips is covered, and an airline excess baggage allowance of 135 kg is included.

Scholarship holders do not receive payment for personal removal expenses. If the scholarship holder is married when applying, some travel and removal expenses may be paid for the husband or wife. Any travel costs or support for dependent children must be paid by the scholarship holder.

Scholars may receive help with accommodation in the Fairhaven metropolitan area, but married accommodation is not available on the Redhill Institute campus. Because campus accommodation is always in heavy demand, scholarship applicants should apply at least ten weeks before they plan to move into residence.

Sandridge Institute provides several scholarships for overseas applicants who intend to settle in Ireland and require re-training. The scholarships are for full-time study only and are unavailable for any course lasting less than 23 weeks.

Requirements/eligibility Applicants must show strong academic ability through qualifications already earned in their home country. Alternatively, they need at least five years of relevant work experience in their chosen field, supported by references from at least two employers or supervisors.

The award Scholarship awards include return airfares to Ireland from the applicant's home country if the flight distance from the departure city to Fairhaven is no more than 2,650 kilometres. If the journey is longer, airline vouchers will be supplied instead. Travel to and from airports for both outward and return trips is covered, and an airline excess baggage allowance of 135 kg is included.

Scholarship holders do not receive payment for personal removal expenses. If the scholarship holder is married when applying, some travel and removal expenses may be paid for the husband or wife. Any travel costs or support for dependent children must be paid by the scholarship holder.

Scholars may receive help with accommodation in the Fairhaven metropolitan area, but married accommodation is not available on the Redhill Institute campus. Because campus accommodation is always in heavy demand, scholarship applicants should apply at least ten weeks before they plan to move into residence.