Support Long-term Thinking
Support Long-term Thinking

Author Archive

The Long Now Foundation and a Great Basin Mountain Observatory for Long Science

by Laura Welcher on February 27th, 02019

Figure 1. Mt. Washington in the Snake Range, NV, with bristlecone pines. Photo: Connie Millar

About 15 years ago, my work unexpectedly collided with mountain climate science research when the nonprofit organization I work for, The Long Now Foundation, acquired Mt. Washington in eastern Nevada (Fig. 1). Not the whole mountain, but important parts of. . .   Read More

Molecular Foundry Award Goes to Rosetta Project to Develop a Wearable Rosetta Disk

by Laura Welcher on February 18th, 02016

This November, The Rosetta Project was awarded access to staff and facilities at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab to develop a wearable version of the Rosetta Disk. The successful proposal, titled “The Rosetta Disk – An Exploration into Very Long-term Archiving” focused on the need for access to high-powered microscopes and imaging technology available at. . .   Read More

Call for Participation: The Long Now Foundation Summer Teacher Institute

by Laura Welcher on January 20th, 02016

The Long Now Foundation Summer Teacher Institute Fostering Long-term Responsibility Fort Mason Center, San Francisco August 8-10, 02016 “Civilization is revving itself into a pathologically short attention span. The trend might be coming from the acceleration of technology, the short-horizon perspective of market-driven economics, the next-election perspective of democracies, or the distractions of personal multi-tasking. […]

Storing Digital Data in DNA

by Laura Welcher on August 16th, 02012

Reported in Science today, scientists George Church, Yuan Gao and Sriram Kosuri report that they have written a 5.27-megabit “book” in DNA – encoding far more digital data in DNA than has ever been achieved.

Writing messages in DNA was first demonstrated in 1988, and the largest amount of data written in DNA previously. . .   Read More

Endangered Languages Project launches

by Laura Welcher on June 20th, 02012

The Rosetta Project and PanLex Project at The Long Now Foundation are excited to announce that we are participating in a new initiative called the Endangered Languages Project, which is backed by the Alliance for Linguistic Diversity.

As member organization of the Alliance, we will be providing support for the Project, which aims to:

– accelerate. . .   Read More

Rosetta Project featured on Radio National Australia’s “Lingua Franca”

by Laura Welcher on March 30th, 02012

The Rosetta Project was just featured in the radio show “Lingua Franca,” presented by Maria Zijlstra and broadcast on ABC Radio National Australia. The full program is available here as a podcast on the Lingua Franca website.

 

&nbsp. . .   Read More

PanLex joins Rosetta at Long Now

by Laura Welcher on February 27th, 02012

PanLex, the newest project under the umbrella of The Long Now Foundation, has an ambitious plan: to create a database of all the words of all of the world’s languages. The plan is not merely to collect and store them, but to link them together so that any word in any language can be. . .   Read More

Record-a-thon! This Saturday 7/30

by Laura Welcher on July 25th, 02011

Join us for the Record-a-thon this Saturday July 30 at the Internet Archive and help document and promote the languages used in your own community! We need your help to meet our goal of recording 50 languages in a single day! How many languages can you help us document? Bring yourself and your. . .   Read More

Human Language in the Palm of My Hand

by Laura Welcher on March 4th, 02011

Two days ago, we learned that a Rosetta Disk made its way into the Special Collections of the University of Colorado Boulder library, and was on public display there. One of our members, Zane Selvans paid a visit, and had an extraordinary experience. He took fantastic pictures and wrote it up on his blog Amateur. . .   Read More

A Rosetta Disk is on public display in the University of Colorado Boulder Libraries Special Collection

by Laura Welcher on March 2nd, 02011

In 02008, one of the first prototype Rosetta Disks went to the family of the late Charles Butcher, who was the founder of The Lazy 8 Foundation. Lazy Eight was one of the first supporters of the Long Now 10,000 Year Library and Rosetta Projects.

This Rosetta Disk has now been donated by the. . .   Read More