I’m always amused when the TV reports from storm landfalls are peppered with statements such as, “There’s nobody here but reporters.” Who needs fairness, objectivity, and nuance when there’s a storm a-brewin? Who needs balance, when you’ve got a pole to lean against? Oh, the drama of the live storm stand-up! TV correspondents bellowing while…
From the BBC… thanks for the suggestion, Rosemary. The 3,000-year-old skeletons were in such good condition that anthropologists at the University of Goettingen managed to extract a sample of DNA. That was then matched to two men living nearby: Uwe Lange, a surveyor, and Manfred Huchthausen, a teacher. The two men have now become local…
If the following line doesn’t get you reading The Steampunk Home, nothing will: I can think of two steampunk references to octopodes. Thanks for the link, Rosemary. Similar:Enjoying a peaceful fall moment while it's possible. Taking these moments as they come. AestheticsLearning How to Love My Daughter Image description: A teen girl in a …CultureNo…
A fascinating exploration of learning at a very early stage. Thanks for the link, Robert. (BBC) Usually, cuttlefish eggs lie in an envelope full of black ink. But this clears as the embryos grow older, leaving them growing within translucent eggs. These unborn cuttlefish also have fully developed eyes. That leads the researchers to conclude…
If your father is an English professor, how do you respond to poorly written signs in a kiddie park? Everywhere I go, I like taking pictures of signs with mistakes that make good classroom proofreading examples. Shortly after I moved to Western Pennsylvania, I learned that Idlewild Park is the regional version of Disneyland. Every…
NYT: T. rex shared more of its genetic makeup with ostriches and chickens than with living reptiles, like alligators. On this basis, the research team has redrawn the family tree of major vertebrate groups, assigning the dinosaur a new place in evolutionary relationships. Similar molecular tests on tissues from the extinct mastodon confirmed its close…
One hundred different people hitting a drum, from age 1 to 100. A short film by Lenka Clayton and James Price. Similar:40 Things I Want to Tell My Kids Before They're Too Cool to ListenAfter the 20th item I kind of got the gu…CultureMeet the guys who tape Trump's papers back togetherI tell this old…
Jay Dixit, in Psychology Today, surveys research that considers dreams to be the brain’s training grounds for real-world emergencies. The idea that dreams are a dojo for perfecting waking activities fits well with what is already known about practice. Mental rehearsal through visualization improves skills, enhances learning, and changes the brain, polishing performance in almost…
The New Statesman: With only few days remaining in 2007, the indications are the global temperature for this year is the same as that for 2006 – there has been no warming over the 12 months. But is this just a blip in the ever upward trend you may ask? No. The fact is that…
Blogged as a reference, for the next time I have to introduce students to semiotics (ytmnd.com). Similar:#PPTPlaytime Tartuffe @thepublicpgh (Looking forward to Part 2 of this live videoconferenc…CultureSlashes in Legal WritingI’m not a student. I found your we…BusinessCarolyn Gombell Is Not a Real Person: #JusticeforCarolyn Is a Campaign Against Twitter Ref…Fascinating use of social media.…
Footage from a NASA camera, via CBS: Similar:Annoyed and Bored by Lazy Anachronisms in The Great Gatsby MovieI just watched the recent Great Gatsby m…AestheticsIs it okay to say clanker?Clanker is a derogatory term used to ins…CybercultureAnd Now for This Breaking News Report “Police have cornered the suspect wh…AmusingNTSB Blames Intern for Confirming Offensive Fake…
From the New Yorker: It may seem strange that this last observation could have surprised anyone, but in Galileo’s time people assumed that the Milky Way must be some kind of continuous substance. It truly resembled a streak of spilled liquid–our word “galaxy” comes from the Greek for milk–and it was so bright that it…
In Texas, spiders have learned to cooperate. And I, for one, salute our new arachnid overlords. But Tuesday afternoon, thousands of Texas spiders were back at it, working to rebuild an immense spider web at Lake Tawakoni State Park that at one time stretched about 200 yards, covering bushes and trees to create a creepy…
This evening, I was out in the yard playing with the kids, when they noticed the full moon rising above a house a little ways down the street. Similar:Yellow Journalism Did Not Cause the Spanish-American War (Role of Sensationalized Headlin… When a correspondent sent to Cuba to c…AestheticsRelics (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 6, Episode 4)…
Roy F. Baumeister One can imagine an ancient battle in which the enemy was driven off and the city saved, and the returning soldiers are showered with gold coins. An early feminist might protest that hey, all those men are getting gold coins, half of those coins should go to women. In principle, I agree.…
Today we drove to the Thunder Mountain Lenape powwow, which was full of color and music. There were two drums — that is, groups of singers who sat around the same drum, chanting in rhythm. Dancers mostly moved around the circle. The younger the dancer, the fancier the footwork and the more the likelihood of…
Because so little primary historical work has been done on the classic text computer game “Colossal Cave Adventure”, academic and popular references to it frequently perpetuate inaccuracies. “Adventure” was the first in a series of text-based games (“interactive fiction”) that emphasize exploring, puzzles, and story, typically in a fantasy setting; these games had a significant…
An octopus with a porcelain plate stuck to its suckers has led to the discovery of a hoard of ancient pottery, South Korean scientists say. —Treasure trove ‘found by octopus’ (BBC) Thanks for the link, Rosemary. Similar:Between static hand-coded HTML pages and modern content-management systems, there used to …When I started my blog in 1999 (by…
Statistics collected over two decades show an alarming decline in the performance of America’s boys–in some respects, a virtual free fall. Boys were doing poorly in school, abusing drugs, committing violent crimes and engaging in promiscuous sex. Young males lost ground by many behavioral indicators at some point in the 1980s and ’90s: sharp plunges…
Sometimes called the reptilian brain because its basic structure dates back to our reptile ancestors, the brain stem is largely devoted to our most primal instincts, far removed from the complex, higher-brain skills that allow us to understand humor. And yet somehow, in this primitive region, we find the urge to laugh. —Steven Johnson —What’s…