The next time you’re at REI choosing between an orange and blue climbing rope and a yellow and green version, think of . Ditto when you step into a colorful climbing harness or strap on a pair of Teva sandals. She is the textile designer, weaver, and visual artist who gave all this gear a little style.

After graduating from the University of Lyon with a degree in literature, the Frenchwoman spent much of her spare time exploring the storied Val d’Isère, tucked in the French Alps. Marchal had a problem with the plainness of the technical gear she needed in the mountains, so she decided to add some life. “Climbing harnesses were just white and boring,” she says. “I thought that it would be more fun if it had designs. So I started drawing up weavings for harnesses and practicing the patterns on my loom.”

Marchal went back to school for textile design at the and eventually brought her ideas to gear manufacturers. In 1988, she took over the artistic department of , a manufacturer of climbing ropes, harnesses, and webbing based in Vienne, France. “It was the most famous rope-climbing factory in France at the time, and here they were saying, ‘Do you want to design?’” she says. “The only answer I could come up with was, ‘Why not?’”

It wasn’t long before American companies began to hear of Marchal’s talents. She’s responsible for creating Teva’s first designed sandal strap (the lizard pattern). She also introduced the first jacquard (intricate variegated that give the fabric stretchy capabilities) on climbing gear webbing. Marchal has since worked for Black Diamond, Petzl, and Lupine. Twenty years later, she holds court as ’s resident webbing designer.

Age: 52
Job: Textile designer
Hometown: Lyon, France
Home Base: Saint-Christophe-d’Allier, Auvergne, France
Favorite Ritual: “Having my coffee in the morning.”

Her Job Description: “When I say I’m a weaver, people sometimes don’t understand that it’s a job. If you say, ‘I’m a designer,’ they understand.”

Her Favorite Tool: “My loom. It’s so important to try all my designs on my loom, because you have to play with the material. You learn how the design works beyond how it looks. It comes alive. You play with colors, and the design can surprise you in ways you can’t experience with computer design or drawings.”

The Process: “I do sketches of the design I want to create, but I also use a computer to map out the pattern and analyze the details of the fabric and the pattern. With the computer, we can see how buckles or Velcro will affect the width of the webbing or the number of threads and colors we can use without having to test every option with a handmade sample. When we choose what fabrics, threads, and colors work best for the design, I go to the factory and practice the new techniques and the pattern on the loom. You have to create samples to test the resistance or the thickness of each pattern—the computer can’t do that for you. After doing samples on the loom, we check to see if the final product is OK and if it’s what we want aesthetically and functionally. Does the team agree on the design and the function? If so, we can then begin the process of mass production.”

How She Makes Gear Look Good and Work Well: “There is a compromise between the quality and the aesthetic. It’s a balance you have to find between creativity and research. It can be beautiful, but gear is no good if you can’t use it. You have to ask, ‘Does this look beautiful?’ while also asking, ‘Can this go in the water?’”

How to Collaborate with a Brand: “It’s always a compromise between the ideas you have and adapting them to satisfy the brand you’re working for. You have to learn to connect your creations to something more commercial. When you have an idea, follow it and see it through. Then, adapt your idea to the brand.”

The Most Rewarding Part of the Job: “When I see someone wearing the sandals I design, it’s a gift, because no one knows that I made it. It’s a secret, and I like that secret.”

How She Unwinds: “I love to be with my animals. I have horses at home, and I love them. They’re perfect to calm down with, because no matter what, they’re always happy and always nice. The perspective of animals is important for balancing the perspective of people. And the other thing is music. My husband is a musician, and we share that passion and create things and perform together.”

Her Most Powerful Piece of Advice: “Just go! Go where you feel you can go. If you feel something, believe in what you feel, not what you think. Then go. When you analyze, it’s not good. Just follow your intuition.”

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Photographer really means it when she says she is “based” in the San Francisco Bay area—she’s usually traveling somewhere else. Even her bio on Instagram, where she has nearly 50,000 followers, states, “When I’m not traveling, I’m traveling.” In between trekking through the forests of Uganda photographing gorillas, soaking in the Nile; backpacking through Italy, Switzerland, France, and Spain; and checking out the food scene in Thailand, we caught up with Simone Anne to talk about her recent excursion on the John Muir trail. She soloed all 220 miles of the trail in a month, capturing her favorite moments along the way and posting them to her feed as well as her . Here’s what she had to say about the trail, her camera, and making wanderlust-worthy Instagram shots.

Photo: “This image is of my campsite at Garnet Lake, where I perched my tent on a flat bit of granite high above the lake. Nestled among the trees, I had an incredible view of this dramatic sunset all to myself. I got a lot of crazy weather while I was on the JMT (seasoned backpackers of the Eastern Sierras kept saying, “This doesn’t feel like July!”), but with each storm that cleared just in time for sunset, I was reminded again of how lucky I was to be able to experience such a stunning place in such an immersive way.”

What’s the story behind your most liked photo from the trail?

The image of Cathedral Peak was my most popular photo from the trip. It has got to be one of my favorite campsites of the entire trip, although it also ended up being the scariest. Most people camp at the base of the peak on the opposite side of lake; I trekked around to this side so that I could see the peak and hopefully catch its reflection in the water as the sunset.

It had rained on and off all day, but I had gorgeous light in the afternoon and evening as I made camp and cooked dinner. Right after dinner, the sky opened up again: I had strong rains, high wind, and tons of lightning.

What do you shoot with?

The images on my Instagram feed are created with my (cracked) iPhone 5, my professional Canon 5D MkIII DSLR, and the new Sony a6000 mirrorless camera that I picked up specifically for this backpacking trip. On such a long solo thru hike, every single ounce of weight counts, I wanted a camera that could take exactly the image I had in mind without being overwhelmingly heavy (and bulky) and the Sony did the trick.

With any photo, I’m a strong believer that it’s the light, composition, and subject that make the image intriguing, not the kind of camera you use to take it. When I’m inspired, I take images, no matter what camera I have on hand.

Opinions on filters and editing for Instagram?

I edit all of my images to help them look like I remember the scene looking in real life, but I don’t like to go over the top. Editing should enhance an image, not make it look fake. Minimal but deliberate editing helps me to achieve that. The in-app editing from Instagram is fantastic. I also use Lightroom, VSCO, Afterlight, Retouch, SKRWT, AntiCrop, and other iOS apps to bring my images to life.

Tips for aspiring Instagram pros?

Photograph what really matters to you and tell the story behind it, too. Also photograph personal projects and adventures (like this hike!). Be consistent with a high quality of work and be honest about who you are as the photographer. Remember that while it’s based around photography, Instagram is a social network; value the relationships you build through Instagram, both on and offline.

Do you carry a phone and your SLR when you’re hiking?

I take images with whatever is handy, but generally I like to take photographs with my mirrorless camera or my SLR. When it comes to landscape or astrophotography, these tools get me a lot closer to creating the image I see or have in mind.

This image was taken on my last night of my JMT hike, when I found a campsite off the trail below Mount Whitney that had an incredible view. I got an insane sunset and I spotted a coyote loping along in the distance. In the morning I woke to fog drifting over the lake and burning off in the early sunshine.

Has Instagram changed the way you travel and look at the world?

Some of the best feedback I’ve received on my images is that my travel stories have caused people to plan their own big trip, get outside and explore with the people they love, or book a flight somewhere new. It’s important to me to keep telling the true story of my own journey to “get out there” in the hope that I can continue to inspire other people take the same leap.

How has your Instagram account grown and does it play into your career as a photographer?

Without Instagram, I would not have been able to connect with so many rad clients and friends. Instagram is also a lot of fun. I’m a backpacker who loves creating landscape images and star photos. I’m a wedding photographer who travels all over the world to capture people in love saying their vows in jaw dropping places. I’m a travel photographer who loves eating gelato in Italy, chocolate croissants in France, and Malay cuisine in South Africa. I’m a born and bred California girl who thrives on the ocean and rides a pink skateboard. My account is a reflection of all of the different sides of me and I have it to thank for many of the photography jobs that I hold nearest to my heart.

This photograph is a selfie I took of myself right after summiting Mount Whitney. I still had one night and roughly ten miles before I would be back in civilization, but the top of the peak is the official end of the John Muir Trail. After 211 miles of solo hiking, I felt euphoric to have actually made it.

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Any runner gunning for a PR knows that pacing strategy is important. And until now, most of those strategies look like this: Figure out what pace you can hold for the distance, and hold it. But two French researchers say a varied pace is better, and they’ve created the ultimate running algorithm to determine your optimal pace for every race condition. 

“No wearable device out there is based on real scientific formula, and large companies are cheating runners into thinking they are giving them more than just simple Excel-sheet calculations that measure heart rate,” says Amandine Aftalion, director at in Paris. “We managed to write mathematical forms based on the numerical velocity at each distance marker of a run within the unique physical parameters of a runner.”

In other words, Aftalion’s formulas will tell you what pace you should be running at any given moment during a run to reach your best time for the distance. Previous models assume the body should move and recover at a constant speed. Think: You should run 8:10s for this 10K. Aftalion and Bonnan found, however, that , rather than trying to keep a constant pace. If you are attempting a 3:30 marathon, it’s more efficient to bounce between a 7:30 and an 8:30 mile, they say, rather than maintain the 8:00-per-mile pace.

“A runner can know exactly when they should move back and forth between speed surges to optimize every bit of energy, instead of just guessing all of this information by how fast their heart is beating,” Aftalion says. It may be more complicated than calculating target heart rate zones, but the French equation promises to be more helpful in improving running efficiency.

The catch: There’s not yet an easy way to apply the complicated equation. Having access to such specific information would be a game changer in terms of fitness technology, but Aftalion and Bonnan have not secured funding to create a software product for consumers. 

“We have analyzed the mathematical and numerical properties to check that it can roughly reproduce reality,” says Bonnan. But until a product can be funded and created, a real-life test model is out of reach. In the future, they hope to create a watch or other wearable that would constantly track and update the best speed to run at any moment so you can nab that 3:30 finishing time based on course location, heart rate, speed, and energy output.

(For the math geeks among us, here’s a brief rundown of how the French equation works: A runner’s speed is the known variable. The muscular force being used and anaerobic function of the runner act as the unknown variables. Depending on your physical traits and your velocity at any certain point of a run, the equation can solve for output force, VO2 max, and muscular capacity.)

While Aftalion works on issue of practical use, she’s forging ahead on the math. She hopes to adapt the equation to triathlon, cycling, and skiing training in the future. “It’s not easy to convince sportsmen that science can be the answer when training,” she says. “My work is to apply science to the places it can help.” 

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Last summer, the filed a claim against —a company that develops and markets “proprietary technologies” used in foods and supplements—after finding that a study published in  contained altered key measurements and unsubstantiated data. The study stated that consuming green coffee bean extract would promote good health and weight loss. Now the two lead investigators who wrote the study have retracted the findings, admitting to flawed data in an October 16 .

“We have previously said that either the study never happened or happened in some form but was so hopelessly botched that no reliable conclusions could be drawn from the purported results,” FTC Office of Public Affairs representative Mitchell Katz told ���ϳԹ��� in an email.

Dr. Mehmet Oz repeatedly endorsed AFS and the study, calling green coffee beans a “miracle” weight-loss aid. AFS used video of Oz’s endorsement to publicize its study, which boosted sales of the company’s green coffee bean product. Oz appeared before a hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection in June, where he admitted to promoting other flawed studies in a way that may harm consumers. “I don’t get why you say this stuff, because you know it’s not true,” Senator Clair McCaskill of Missouri told him.

mentioned that the show had “covered Green Coffee Extract and its potential as a useful tool for weight loss,” adding that the coverage was only partially based on research from the retracted paper. “While this sometimes happens in scientific research,” the post reads, “it indicates that further study is needed regarding any potential benefits of Green Coffee Extract.”

Katz says that while the study itself was “facially nonsensical,” advertisers must be held responsible for the studies they choose to cite as legitimate. “If sellers advertise based on junk science instead of reliable and competent evidence, we will hold them accountable for consumer loss.”

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When it comes to making healthy food and beverage choices, a new study shows that people are better off knowing both the number of calories they’re consuming and the amount of exercise it would take to burn them off.

The study, conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and published in the , found that caloric information presented in a more applicable context led to a 37 percent drop in the purchase of large sugary drinks and a 10 percent reduction in total calories consumed. Lead researcher Sara Bleich, an associate professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Johns Hopkins, posted calorie counts and “miles to walk” signs in corner stores in Baltimore. When a sign next to a soda read “250 calories, or five miles of walking,” consumers were more likely to leave the soft drink on the shelf than if only the calories were posted. 

from the Canadian Institute of Health Research showed that decisions regarding food consumption are based on the brain’s ability to track true calorie content. Your brain will instinctually lead you to make choices based solely on higher calorie counts. By raising awareness of the energy needed to expend those calories, consumers can make a conscious effort to choose healthier foods than what their instincts lead them toward.

Researchers said that while the sample size used in the Baltimore study is small, the findings are applicable on a larger scale, especially with the Affordable Care Act requiring chain restaurants to . “If we’re going to put this information in restaurants,” Bleich was quoted as saying in an , then adding the miles of walking required to burn them “may be the more persuasive way.”

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Help may be on the way for California’s suffering Salton Sea.

Due to increasing salinity and changes in water appropriations of the Colorado River under the Quantification Settlement Agreement, the Salton Sea is increasingly more like a dustbowl than a lake. A historical lack of government funding has prevented conservation efforts in the past, but a newly proposed sales tax increase would change that.

Assemblyman Brian Nestande of California announced on Monday his initiative to employ a quarter-cent sales tax increase in the Coachella Valley, where the Salton Sea is located. The money raised would pay for an earthen dike to be constructed across the northern portion of the Salton Sea. The damlike structure would create a new body of water the size of Lake Arrowhead that would be fed by runoff and preserve the northern shoreline.

Nestande said the Coachella Valley has the most at stake economically and environmentally, and local buy-in efforts are best. “No one’s ever talked about a funding source. This is how we fund it,” he said in from the Desert Sun. Along with tax increases, Nestande is also sponsoring the promotion of at least 7,500 . The plates will sell for $50, and drivers can preregister for them. 

The cost of the dike and restoration project has not been officially estimated, but reports state that it would range from $225 million to $510 million. “While I tend to be cautious when it comes to new taxes or fees, I do like the idea that revenues generated locally are used locally,” said Assemblyman V. Manuel Pérez in . “It goes without saying that we need action at all levels when it comes to the sea.”

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