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Thursday, December 24th, 2009
brdgt
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2:04p
Science Tuesday - Mammoths, Hunter Gatherers, and Food
Observatory: DNA Shifts Timeline for Mammoths’ Exit
By HENRY FOUNTAIN, The New York Times, December 22, 2009
Thousands of years ago in northwestern North America, large animal species, among them the woolly mammoth and the horse, became extinct. Among the proposed explanations for this is one known as the blitzkrieg hypothesis — that humans entering the region rapidly wiped the animals out through overhunting.
The validity of that explanation, and others, depends in parts on the timing of the extinctions. How many thousands of years ago did the animals disappear?
Until now, the answer to that question has been 13,000 to 15,000 years ago. But those dates come from the youngest reliably dated fossils that have been found, and who is to say there aren’t even younger fossils out there?
A new study has come up with a far different answer, using a far different technique.
Rather than dating actual fossils, the researchers analyzed DNA found in permanently frozen sediments at a site on the Yukon River in central Alaska. As they report in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they found evidence that mammoths and horses were still around at least until 10,500 years ago, long after humans arrived.
( Read More )
Observatory: Foraging Early Humans Did Not Pass Up Grains
By HENRY FOUNTAIN, The New York Times, December 22, 2009
Early humans were hunter-gatherers, but what did they gather? The easy stuff, archeologists say — roots, fruits and nuts. Until relatively late in the Pleistocene, which ended about 12,000 years ago, grains were thought to have been largely ignored by foraging humans, at least in part because they were difficult to process.
But Julio Mercader, an archeologist at the University of Calgary, has now found evidence from a cave in Mozambique that humans were eating sorghum grasses at least 105,000 years ago. The evidence was in the form of microscopic starch granules found on stone tools from the cave.
( Read More )
Basics: Sorry, Vegans: Brussels Sprouts Like to Live, Too
By NATALIE ANGIER, The New York Times, December 22, 2009
I stopped eating pork about eight years ago, after a scientist happened to mention that the animal whose teeth most closely resemble our own is the pig. Unable to shake the image of a perky little pig flashing me a brilliant George Clooney smile, I decided it was easier to forgo the Christmas ham. A couple of years later, I gave up on all mammalian meat, period. I still eat fish and poultry, however and pour eggnog in my coffee. My dietary decisions are arbitrary and inconsistent, and when friends ask why I’m willing to try the duck but not the lamb, I don’t have a good answer. Food choices are often like that: difficult to articulate yet strongly held. And lately, debates over food choices have flared with particular vehemence.
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current mood:  content
current music: The Office
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(1 comment | comment on this) Thursday, December 17th, 2009
notmarcie
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5:13p
Mapping my life
I'm developing an idea for a sort of Art project at the moment based around mapping Manchester and historical plaques. I'm not sure if it's good or a little bit wanky. Probably a bit of both, but I think I'll do it anyway.
The concept is that the city holds so many memories of important events which are commemorated with Blue and Red Plaques (eg, this is where the Peterloo Massacre happened, this is where Rutherford split the atom etc), events that shaped the city and the world.
I want to make the city personal. By this I mean my own marking of sites where important things happened to me, like "It was here that I realised I was falling in love with him" "It was here when I found out I'd failed my second year of University", "It was here I was first sexually harrassed in public". All sorts of things, good and bad that shaped me as a person.
I plan on making fabric tags, printing them with "On this spot in ....." and then writing in the date and what happened, then fixing them with string or ribbon to the place, photographing it and then blogging them along with a map of all the locations. It's a project that can run and run. I'm quite excited about it actually.
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(12 comments | comment on this)
brdgt
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9:55a
Mad Men fashion
DRESS CODES: Dressing for Success, Again
By DAVID COLMAN, The New York Times, December 17, 2009
THE runaway phenomenon that is “Mad Men,” with its stylish depiction of Kennedy-era New York, where men dressed with style and philandered with impunity, has handed modern men their very own “Sex and the City” fantasy.
But an overlooked aspect of “Mad Men” is the fashion turnabout it represents. In the show, the older men — Don Draper and his boss, Roger Sterling — are the best-dressed characters, while the new-kid, cool-cat copywriters are so loath to play the game that they won’t even wear a tie. Soon enough, the hippie movement would deride the necktie as a “dog collar” and any corporate-minded spoilsport as a “suit.” In the decades that followed, a minor genre of films addressed the Unsuiting of Mr. X, from “Barefoot in the Park” (1967) and “Easy Rider” (1969) to “After Hours” (1985) and “Something Wild” (1986).
Now the tie is on the other neck. Today the well-off 55-year-old is likely to be the worst-dressed man in the room, wearing a saggy T-shirt and jeans. The cash-poor 25-year-old is in a natty sport coat and skinny tie bought at Topman for a song. Young men are embracing the “Mad Men” elements of style in a way that the older men never did, still don’t and just won’t. The result is a kind of rift emerging between the generation of men in their 20s and 30s and those in their late 40s and 50s for whom a suit was not merely square but cubed, and caring about how one looked was effeminate.
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current mood:  peaceful
current music: Smashing Pumpkins - Cupid De Locke
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notmarcie
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1:19a
Sewing bug
I want more parties that involve costumes/getting in character. I've got a sewing urge at the moment and I really don't need to make/alter/customise any more clothes, but I'd love to craft another costume. If I was less rubbish, I'd organise some sort of night somewhere.
Today I bought buttons, agate, crystal beads, some chunky wool, some mangoes and sausages. It was a strange little shopping trip.
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(comment on this) Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
brdgt
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9:19a
Travel Warning Time!
So, y'all know that I love State Department Travel Warnings, right? They often provide political, economic, and social information that even good news sources don't have the time to get into. Yesterday I was catching up on some while waiting for Nick to talk to his advisor (oh god, that's a whole other post) and really enjoyed the one on Georgia ("enjoyed" in the sense that I love when the warnings are really detailed):
The Department of State continues to warn U.S. citizens of the risks of travel to Georgia. This Travel Warning replaces the one dated December 12, 2008 to note the possibility of violent demonstrations.
American citizens are urged not to travel to the separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and to be aware that the potential exists for gunfire, increased risk of crime, and ongoing potential for violence in these and areas adjacent to these regions.
The U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi has limited travel for its employees in areas adjacent to the region of South Ossetia, to include all roads north of the M-1 (East/West Highway) that lead to the region of South Ossetia; areas adjacent to the region of Abkhazia, including the Tsalenjikha District of the Samegrelo Region; and the region of the Pankisi Gorge, north of the city Akhmeta, up to the border with Russia.
Unexploded ordnance continues to pose risks in the areas where fighting took place in August 2008, including around the city of Gori in the direction of the administrative boundary with South Ossetia. Travel in some parts of western Georgia remains unpredictable
American citizens currently in Georgia are urged to continue to review their personal security situations and to take appropriate action to ensure their safety. Given the recent upheaval in Georgia, American citizens should take precautions in case of an increase in violent crime. Demonstrations can occur without notice and even demonstrations intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational and possibly escalate into violence. The U.S. Embassy advises all Americans in Georgia to avoid the areas of demonstrations if possible, and to exercise caution if within the vicinity of any demonstrations. American citizens are encouraged to remain in close communication with the American Embassy in Tbilisi for more detailed information.
I had no idea how things had developed their recently. Then this morning there is this fascinating article in the New York Times:
Nauru, an eight-square-mile rock in the South Pacific, has about 11,000 inhabitants.
Abkhazia Is Recognized — by Nauru
By ELLEN BARRY, The New York Times, December 16, 2009
MOSCOW — A new player has emerged in the roiling political theater of the Caucasus: the tiny, destitute Pacific island nation of Nauru, which on Tuesday became the fourth country to formally establish diplomatic relations with Abkhazia, effectively recognizing its sovereignty.
The announcement comes 15 months after Russia began lobbying its allies to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the two separatist territories at the center of its 2008 war with Georgia.
Nauru, an eight-square-mile rock in the South Pacific with about 11,000 inhabitants, was no pushover, according to the influential Russian daily newspaper Kommersant. In talks with Russian officials, Nauru requested $50 million for “urgent social and economic projects,” the newspaper reported, citing unnamed Russian diplomats.
Igor Lyakin-Frolov, a spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, would not comment on the report.
Nauru, the world’s smallest republic, has been desperate for income since its most important resource, phosphates formed by centuries of bird droppings, is nearly exhausted. The island has tried housing refugees for Australia and investing millions in a West End musical. (It bombed.)
Recently, it has begun to dabble in foreign-policy hardball. In 2002, Nauru severed diplomatic relations with Taiwan, coincident with a reported pledge of $130 million from China. Three years later, it switched again, prompting a Chinese official to grumble that the islanders were “only interested in material gains.”
In any case, the mood in Sukhumi, the Abkhaz capital, was celebratory on Tuesday.
( Read More )
current mood:  geeky
current music: Beatles - If You've Got Trouble
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(3 comments | comment on this) Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
mystril
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2:46p
Am I the only person who sees Kevin Jennings name and thinks Ken Jennings, then gets very confused because what does Jeopardy have to do with government-sponsored kiddy porn?
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(3 comments | comment on this)
brdgt
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9:59a
Science Tuesday - Dinosaurs, Comedy, and Child Abuse
An illustrated reconstruction of the head of the newly discovered Triassic dinosaur Tawa hallae.
OBSERVATORY: Bones Show Early Divergence of Dinosaur Lineage
By HENRY FOUNTAIN, The New York Times, December 15, 2009
The early evolution of dinosaurs, in the late Triassic period, is fuzzy, to say the least. Paleontologists know that the first dinosaurs appeared about 230 million years ago, but fossil evidence is so spotty that it is unclear where and when the major lineages — theropods, sauropods and ornithischians — began to diverge.
Some excellent 215-million-year-old fossils unearthed in Ghost Ranch, in northern New Mexico, are helping to clarify things. The bones, of a theropod that the discoverers have named Tawa hallae, support the idea that the lineages diverged early on in the part of the supercontinent Pangea that is now South America.
( Read More )
Did You Hear the One About the Former Scientist?
By KENNETH CHANG, The New York Times, December 15, 2009
A biologist walks into a comedy club...
Actually, the story begins earlier. A biologist who had abandoned academia and was working in San Francisco on contract as a computer programmer for Charles Schwab walked into a Laundromat ...
The former biologist was Tim Lee. After completing his undergraduate biology degree at the University of California, San Diego, he worked at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography for a while before he realized he needed a doctorate to do the interesting work. But by the time he finished his Ph.D. at the University of California, Davis, he had realized he hated academia.
“I just didn’t want to read any more papers,” Dr. Lee said. “I didn’t want to write any more papers.”
Dr. Lee then worked as a computer programmer, and he moved to San Francisco. During a vacation, he read memoirs of comedians like Bill Cosby, Bob Newhart and Jerry Seinfeld, and he wrote some jokes.
Then he walked into a Laundromat, which was holding an open microphone night for anyone who wanted to take a shot at being a comic. Dr. Lee told about a dozen jokes. Only four or five of them got laughs, but that was good enough for the host to offer some encouraging words.
Dr. Lee wrote more jokes. He went to more open mikes. He eventually got a paying gig — $35 from a comedy club in Santa Cruz, Calif. Along the way, he started telling science jokes, and he discovered that PowerPoint made a good comedy prop.
( Read More )
Case Shined First Light on Abuse of Children
By HOWARD MARKEL, M.D., The New York Times, December 15, 2009
“Mamma has been in the habit of whipping and beating me almost every day,” the little girl testified. “She used to whip me with a twisted whip — a rawhide.
“I have now on my head two black-and-blue marks which were made by Mamma with the whip, and a cut on the left side of my forehead which was made by a pair of scissors in Mamma’s hand; she struck me with the scissors and cut me. ... I never dared speak to anybody, because if I did I would get whipped.”
If the words sound depressingly familiar, it is because they could have come from any number of recent news accounts — or, for that matter, popular entertainment, like the recently opened movie “Precious,” which depicts the emotional and sexual abuse of a Harlem girl.
In fact, though, the quotation is from the 1874 case of Mary Ellen McCormack, below, a self-possessed 10-year-old who lived on West 41st Street, in the Hell’s Kitchen section of Manhattan. It was Mary Ellen who finally put a human face on child abuse — and prompted a reformers’ crusade to prevent it and to protect its victims, an effort that continues to this day.
Tellingly, the case was brought by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. In 1874, there were no laws protecting children from physical abuse from their parents. It was an era of “spare the rod and spoil the child,” and parents routinely meted out painful and damaging punishment without comment or penalty.
( Read More )
current mood: geeky
current music: Smashing Pumpkins - Cupid De Locke
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