Image: John Dransfield / Royal Botanic Gardens via AP

Associated Press reports (via Discovery Science):
A self-destructing palm tree that flowers once every 100 years and then dies has been discovered on the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar, botanists said Thursday.
[…]
Local villagers have known about it for years although none had seen it in. . .   Read More

…by Bill Gates.

Image from the International CES website

Perhaps the central feature of the Long Now’s Long Bets project is accountability — tracking the fortunes of predictive statements and the arguments made in support of them. In a mediasphere with an attention span as short as ours, pundits, CEOs and other “thought leaders” can. . .   Read More

Stills from Feed (blog) at Stash (DVD Magazine) online. Herewith, an elegant “long short” featuring the formation of an island from scratch, from the stirring of an underwater volcano to lush tropical paradise in less than sixty seconds. Okay, so it’s a beer ad — we’ll rip off long shorts wherever we find ’em. Click […]

Ori Gersht :: Time After Time: Blow Up No. 12 (02007) :: Image at Mummery+Schnelle Featured in the September/October edition of Art on Paper magazine, the work of Israel-born, London-based photographer Ori Gersht. His series “Time After Time” (02007) features floral still lifes in the process of exploding, with a surreal and vivid beauty. The […]

The job of the long view is to penetrate illusion. […] How can we see the insidious transformations of our own day? Slow science is part of it, applied history is part of it, and every year there are more sophisticated tools of macroscopic vision. One video going the rounds of the conferences shows the accelerating. . .   Read More

Author Margaret Atwood, perhaps best known for the near-future fable The Handmaid’s Tale, has invented a device called LongPen which allows writers to sign their works at a distance, replicating their hand movements. Says Atwood: It is the world’s first long-distance, real-time signing and handwriting device. … In other words, the LongPen is not an […]

Reuters reported in October that the first American Baby Boomer — a retired school teacher, born one second after midnight on 1 January, 01946 — has officially applied for Social Security payments. Currently, retirees seeking early benefits can apply three months before their 62nd birthday.

As the largest generation ever in the United States, the Baby Boomers. . .   Read More

Last month I came across an interesting Long Now-flavoured idea in an unexpected context, a feature article in Honolulu Weekly about agricultural tourism on the Hawaiian island of Maui. In it, farmer Richard Clark points out that humans, with an average lifespan of 70 plus years, are “temporal chauvinists” who like to use solar. . .   Read More

…take your pick.

(Thanks to Jamais Cascio for spotting this.)

From an interview with US Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, by BusinessWeek magazine:
BusinessWeek: Would you consider a position in business or on Wall Street?
Condoleezza Rice: I don’t know what I’ll do long-term. I’m a terrible long-term planner.
~ “A. . .   Read More

Domain Field (02003) :: image at antonygormley.com
I recently met British sculptor Antony Gormley at the EGS summer session in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. Most of his works interpret the human body, and many of them replicate actual bodies — frequently his own. A deeply thoughtful presentation of his work during an evening seminar impressed on me. . .   Read More