Inhaled creosote as a medicine

This vintage advertisement is from 1898.  The schematic shows bronchiectasis in the base of both lungs.

Creosote, which we think of as something to soak railroad ties in, has a long history:

It is produced in some quantities from the burning of wood and coal in blast furnaces and fireplaces; commonly found inside chimney flues when the wood or coal burns incompletely, producing soot and tarry smoke, and is the compound responsible for the preservation and the flavor of meat in the process of smoking.

The name is derived from the Greek kréas (κρέας), meaning "flesh", and sōtēr (σωτήρ), meaning "preserver"... 

It starts off being used as a meat preservative:

Soon after it was discovered and recognized as the principle of meat smoking, wood-tar creosote became used as a replacement for the process. Several methods were used to apply the creosote. One was to dip the meat in pyroligneous acid or a water of diluted creosote... and within one hour the meat would have the same quality of that of traditionally smoked preparations... Another was to place the meat in a closed box, and place with it a few drops of creosote in a small bottle. Because of the volatility of the creosote, the atmosphere was filled with a vapor containing it, and it would cover the flesh...

Medical usage dates back to before the compound was isolated:

During antiquity, pitches and resins were used commonly as medicines. Pliny mentions a variety of tar-like substances being used as medicine... Given this history, and the anti-septic properties known to creosote, it became popular among physicians in the 19th century. A dilution of creosote in water was sold in pharmacies as Aqua creosoti... 

And re the lungs:

Creosote was suggested as a treatment for tuberculosis by Reichenbach as soon as 1833... Following that, that was a period of experimentation of different techniques and chemicals using creosote in tuberculosis, which lasted until about 1910, when radiation therapy looked to be a more promising treatment... Guaiacol, instead of a full creosote solution, was suggested by Hermann Sahli in 1887; he argued it had the active chemical of creosote and had the advantage of being of definite composition, and with less of a less unpleasant taste and odor...

Never heard of guaiacol?  A derivative product is advertised on television every day:

The guaifenesin... is still commonly used today as an expectorant, sold over the counter, and usually taken by mouth to assist the bringing up of phlegm from the airways in acute respiratory tract infections. Guaifenesin is a component of Mucinex, Robitussin DAC, Cheratussin DAC, Robitussin AC, Cheratussin AC, Benylin, DayQuil Mucous Control, Meltus, and Bidex 400.

As Paul Harvey once famously said:  "And now, you know the rest of the story."

Image from Paul. malon's Flickr photostream, via Adorevintage, and Fuck Yeah, Victorians!

$40,000/year for tuition. High school tuition.

From an article about private schools in the New York City area:

Over the past 10 years, the median price of first grade in the city has gone up by 48 percent, adjusted for inflation... Indeed, this year’s tuition at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory ($38,340 for 12th grade) and Horace Mann ($37,275 for the upper school) is higher than Harvard’s ($36,305)...

“Within one to two years, every independent school will cost more than $40,000,” said one board member at a top school... Parents are reluctant to complain, at least with their names attached, for fear of hurting students’ standing (or siblings’ admissions chances). But privately, many questioned paying more for the same... “People don’t want to put a price tag on their children’s future, so they are willing to pay more than many of them can afford.”

As at most companies, a majority of the costs — and the fastest-growing increases — come from salaries and benefits, especially as notoriously low-paying private schools try to compete with public school compensation.

“Some New York schools have had a 5, 10 or as high as 30 percent increase in the cost of their medical plans,” said Mark Lauria, the executive director of the New York State Association of Independent Schools.

And paying teachers is only a piece of the puzzle. Léman Manhattan Preparatory School has a gym whose floor is cleaned twice a day. The Trinity School has three theaters, six art studios, two tennis courts, a pool and a diving pool.

When I was in high school, I'll bet the gym floor was cleaned once a week before home games.  Maybe.  There's more at the New York Times, plus over 500 comments.

Baltic seafloor anomaly

YouTube link. 

Posted just for fun; this isn't a new discovery, but reports about it surface intermittently.  I would love for it to be a UFO, but have no belief that that's what it is.  But I do love oceans, and treasure stories, and anomalous discoveries.

The Baltic Sea is a literal treasure trove for salvage teams and a "shipwreck laboratory" for researchers. The sea's low salinity levels help preserve objects that sink to the bottom. "Right now, we know about 20,000 objects, mostly shipwrecks, in the Baltic Sea. But I think there may be more than 100,000," said sonar expert Ardreas Olsson.

"Circular breathing" vs. audible inhalations

YouTube link. 

From an article in the Wall Street Journal:

There’s a 1976 recording of James Galway playing Paganini’s “Moto Perpetuo” on his golden flute, in which you never once hear him draw breath. At the time, it was lauded as an almost superhuman feat; a virtuosic example of circular breathing, a technique that allows wind players to simultaneously inhale air through the nose while breathing it out through the mouth. (Galway later confessed the recording had been spliced together.) In 1997, saxophonist Kenny G used circular breathing to play a continuous, unbroken note for a total of 45 minutes and 47 seconds, earning him a mention in the Guinness Book of Records.

The article goes on to discuss how important the breath is to flute players, and how some contemporary flautists are choosing to leave the inhalation audible rather than trying to suppress the sound (video at the link).

Her inhalations, too, became part of the music. Contemporary composers like Fujikura, says Chase, “have started to think of breath as an ornament and as an expressive device in its own right, whether it’s a subtle, moody breath or the dramatic gesture of an inhalation. Some breaths are even notated in the music: it increases the drama.”

In the video, Kenny G demonstrates the technique of circular breathing.

Yales in Cambridge

"Yale" is not just a university or a brand of lock.

We are concerned here with mythical beasts... This one is classical Roman, having first been described by Pliny the Elder. He gave it the name of eale — we don’t know why: the word turns up nowhere else in classical literature — and included it as an animal of Ethiopia...

Following Pliny’s description, the yale is usually shown in illustrations as a mixture of bits of other animals, a chimera, with the snout of a wild boar, the body and head of an antelope, and a couple of long pointed horns of indeterminate origin. The beast turns up in English heraldry in late medieval times, with its form borrowed from Pliny...

The connection with Cambridge University comes via Margaret of Beaufort, the mother of King Henry VII and reputedly the richest woman in medieval England. She founded two of the colleges of the university — Christ’s and St John’s — at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Because of this, her arms, including yales, may still be seen over the gatehouses of the two colleges [above]...

Yale University has borrowed the heraldic beast as a play on its own name. Two in chains flank the portico of Davenport College, one is depicted on the official banner of the president of the university and the campus radio station uses a yale as a logo. The university was actually named in memory of Elihu Yale, a governor of the British East India Company. His name comes from Iâl, a place in north Wales, which in turn is from the Welsh word for a fertile or arable upland.

From World Wide Words, where you can always find something interesting.

The myth of the value of diamonds

Do you think diamonds are intrinsically valuable?  Read these excerpts from a superb article at The Atlantic:

The diamond invention—the creation of the idea that diamonds are rare and valuable, and are essential signs of esteem—is a relatively recent development in the history of the diamond trade. Until the late nineteenth century, diamonds were found only in a few riverbeds in India and in the jungles of Brazil, and the entire world production of gem diamonds amounted to a few pounds a year. In 1870, however, huge diamond mines were discovered near the Orange River, in South Africa, where diamonds were soon being scooped out by the ton. Suddenly, the market was deluged with diamonds. The British financiers who had organized the South African mines quickly realized that their investment was endangered; diamonds had little intrinsic value—and their price depended almost entirely on their scarcity. The financiers feared that when new mines were developed in South Africa, diamonds would become at best only semiprecious gems.

The major investors in the diamond mines realized that they had no alternative but to merge their interests into a single entity that would be powerful enough to control production and perpetuate the illusion of scarcity of diamonds. The instrument they created, in 1888, was called De Beers Consolidated Mines, Ltd., incorporated in South Africa...

De Beers proved to be the most successful cartel arrangement in the annals of modern commerce. While other commodities, such as gold, silver, copper, rubber, and grains, fluctuated wildly in response to economic conditions, diamonds have continued, with few exceptions, to advance upward in price every year since the Depression...

The diamond invention is far more than a monopoly for fixing diamond prices; it is a mechanism for converting tiny crystals of carbon into universally recognized tokens of wealth, power, and romance. To achieve this goal, De Beers had to control demand as well as supply. Both women and men had to be made to perceive diamonds not as marketable precious stones but as an inseparable part of courtship and married life...

 Since the Ayer plan to romanticize diamonds required subtly altering the public's picture of the way a man courts -- and wins -- a woman, the advertising agency strongly suggested exploiting the relatively new medium of motion pictures. Movie idols, the paragons of romance for the mass audience, would be given diamonds to use as their symbols of indestructible love. In addition, the agency suggested offering stories and society photographs to selected magazines and newspapers which would reinforce the link between diamonds and romance. Stories would stress the size of diamonds that celebrities presented to their loved ones, and photographs would conspicuously show the glittering stone on the hand of a well-known woman...

An N. W. Ayer copywriter came up with the caption "A Diamond Is Forever," which was scrawled on the bottom of a picture of two young lovers on a honeymoon. Even though diamonds can in fact be shattered, chipped, discolored, or incinerated to ash, the concept of eternity perfectly captured the magical qualities that the advertising agency wanted to attribute to diamonds...

Not only did it organize a service to "release to the women's pages the engagement ring" but it set about exploiting the relatively new medium of television by arranging for actresses and other celebrities to wear diamonds when they appeared before the camera...

Until 1959, the importation of diamonds had not even been permitted by the postwar Japanese government. When the campaign began, in 1967, not quite 5 percent of engaged Japanese women received a diamond engagement ring. By 1972, the proportion had risen to 27 percent. By 1978, half of all Japanese women who were married wore a diamond; by 1981, some 60 percent of Japanese brides wore diamonds. In a mere fourteen years, the 1,500-year Japanese tradition had been radically revised. Diamonds became a staple of the Japanese marriage...

An advertising campaign could instill the idea that the gift of a second diamond, in the later years of marriage, would be accepted as a sign of "ever-growing love."..

DeBeers devised the "eternity ring," made up of as many as twenty-five tiny Soviet diamonds, which could be sold to an entirely new market of older married women. The advertising campaign was based on the theme of recaptured love. Again, sentiments were born out of necessity: older American women received a ring of miniature diamonds because of the needs of a South African corporation to accommodate the Soviet Union...

Retail jewelers, especially the prestigious Fifth Avenue stores, prefer not to buy back diamonds from customers, because the offer they would make would most likely be considered ridiculously low. The "keystone," or markup, on a diamond and its setting may range from 100 to 200 percent, depending on the policy of the store; if it bought diamonds back from customers, it would have to buy them back at wholesale prices. Most jewelers would prefer not to make a customer an offer that might be deemed insulting and also might undercut the widely held notion that diamonds go up in value...

But a panic on the part of investors is not the only event that could end the diamond business. De Beers is at this writing losing control of several sources of diamonds that might flood the market at any time, deflating forever the price of diamonds...

By the mid-1980s, the avalanche of Australian diamonds will be pouring onto the market. Unless the resourceful managers of De Beers can find a way to gain control of the various sources of diamonds that will soon crowd the market, these sources may bring about the final collapse of world diamond prices. If they do, the diamond invention will disintegrate and be remembered only as a historical curiosity, as brilliant in its way as the glittering little stones it once made so valuable.

I'm embarrassed to have excerpted so much text, but there is much more at the link - essential reading for anyone pondering the purchase of a diamond for a loved one.

Anisocoria

A striking example, most likely the result of unilateral dilation for a retinal exam, rather than from disease or injury.  Photo credit to Kelsey Landsgaard, via Reddit.  (p.s. David Bowie here).

The ongoing rape of our oceans

Excerpts from a report at the Center for Public Integrity:

Jack mackerel, rich in oily protein, is manna to a hungry planet, a staple in Africa. Elsewhere, people eat it unaware; much of it is reduced to feed for aquaculture and pigs. It can take more than 5 kilos of jack mackerel to raise a kilo of farmed salmon. Yet stocks have dropped from an estimated 30 million metric tons to less than 3 million in two decades. The world’s largest trawlers, after depleting other oceans, now head south toward the edge of Antarctica to compete for what is left...

Meantime, industrial fleets bound only by voluntary restraints compete in what amounts to a free-for-all in no man’s water at the bottom of the world. From 2006 through 2011, scientists estimate, jack mackerel stocks declined by 63 percent...

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization says that global fishing fleets “are 2.5 times larger than needed.” That estimate was based on a 1998 report; since then, fleets have expanded...

Chile now has only sardines in relative abundance, he said. “We have no more jack mackerel or hake or anchoveta. Fisheries that produced a million or more tons a year have simply run out from overfishing by big companies.”..

Album says government support has created so much capacity that super trawlers must fish to their maximum for return on investment. “These vessels roam the oceans for any available fish, causing overfishing and unbearable pressure on governments trying to manage resources,” he said.

More at the link, which is the third installment in a series entitled "Looting the Seas."

Sabertooth

Thylacosmilus at first glance looks much like the famous Smilodon (sabertooth tiger)... This animal is very far removed from Smilodon, it is not even a placental mammal. It is a metatherian (marsupials are the living metatherians) more closely related to kangaroos, koalas, wombats, etc than to the saber-toothed tiger.

The similarity between Thylacosmilus and Smilodon is an excellent example of convergent evolution - two distantly relating forms converging upon a simular morphology and life habitat. There are an three other examples of mammals that have developed saber-teeth- in fact most of the last 65 million years had some large cat-like saber-toothed mammal present, the modern biota is the outlier.

Thylacosmilus went extinct roughly 3 million years ago, closely coinciding with the formation of the land bridge linking the Americas. Animals from North America emigrated south and those from South America journeyed north; this fauna exchange is referred to as the Great American Interchange. It is at this time we start to find Smilodon fossils in South America. It is thought that the arrival of this relatively larger predator (the largest Smilodon was twice the size of the largest Thylacosmilus) may have been what drove the only known marsupial saber-toothed form to extinction. 

What puzzled me was that prominent flange angling downward on the front of the mandible (apparently serving to "protect the large canines", presumably from lateral blows).  But I'm not sure with the flange there how the saber-canines can penetrate the victim's flesh (?).

From Your Daily Fossil, via Fauna and A London Salmagundi.

Addendum: re the discussion in the comments re the function and efficacy of these saber teeth, here's a 3D rendering of the critter from The Alchemy Works (with a hat tip to Lady Aritê gunê Akasa):

Is your webcam light glowing ?

Excerpts from an unsettling story at GQ:

Amy, a 20-year-old brunette at the University of California at Irvine, was on her laptop when she got an IM from a random guy nicknamed mistahxxxrightme, asking her for webcam sex. Out of the blue, like that. Amy told the guy off, but he IM'd again, saying he knew all about her, and to prove it he started describing her dorm room, the color of her walls, the pattern on her sheets, the pictures on her walls. "You have a pink vibrator," he said. It was like Amy'd slipped into a stalker movie. Then he sent her an image file. Amy watched in horror as the picture materialized on the screen: a shot of her in that very room, naked on the bed, having webcam sex with James...

Amy decided to call the cops herself. But the instant she phoned the dispatcher, a message chimed on her screen. It was from the hacker. "I know you just called the police," he wrote. She panicked. How could he possibly know?..

The campus police were in no position to handle a case like this. Whoever devised the malware—a sophisticated program capable of dodging antivirus software—clearly had a leg up on university cops. The task of hunting him down fell to agents Tanith Rogers and Jeff Kirkpatrick of the FBI's cyber program in Los Angeles...

Hackers had been accessing cameras here and there for a while. But Mijangos started thinking big: He decided to weaponize them on an unprecedented scale... As soon as she opened the file, Mijangos was in—he had access to her every file, every photo, and could even keep a log of every keystroke, which meant every password. But that wasn't all. Mijangos hit a few buttons, then watched in awe as his screen filled with an image taken by her webcam...

He says it didn't take long for word to get out that he was the go-to guy for anyone looking to spy on a girlfriend or wife. For $150, he'd infect the target's computer, then send his clients links so they could snoop themselves. Mijangos knew a few of his clients were "just perverts" spying on some unsuspecting stranger, but their money was just as good...

You can read the rest of the story at GQ.  BTW, your webcam light is off?  Good.  Now read this:

It's a good thing the FBI discovered the scam when they did, too. Mijangos told me that he'd figured out how to turn off a camera's LED, cloaking himself completely.

Consider covering the lens with a Post-It note...

Two classic Neil Young pieces

YouTube link. 

Last night, after I watched the Neil Young episode of "American Masters",  I searched TYWKIWDBI, and the only hit I got was from the brief recognition he received in 2008 when Myrmekiaphila Neilyoungi was named after him.

So here are two videos - one of his as a performer, and one example of his songwriting:

YouTube link.

Data and code open sourced from Google's Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal project

Posted by Ross Koningstein, Engineer, Google RE

Cross-posted with the Open Source at Google Blog

Google’s RE renewable energy research project has recently open sourced a new tool and a significant amount of data to support future CSP (concentrating solar power) heliostat development.

HOpS Open Source Site

HOpS, heliostat optical simulation, is an open source software tool for accurately and efficiently performing optical simulations of fields of heliostats, the actuated mirror assemblies that direct sunlight onto a target in CSP applications.

Google used this tool to help evaluate heliostat field layouts and calculate heat input into a CSP receiver for power production. HOpS works by passing "packets" of light between optical elements (the sun, heliostats, and elements of the target surface), tracking shadowing and blocking masks along the way. For our analysis goals, this approach gave our researchers more flexibility and accuracy than analytic tools (such as DELSOL or HFLCAL), and it was easier to set up for thousands of runs than using ray tracers. Output from the simulation includes heliostat efficiency, target irradiance, and more, while an included shell script facilitates plotting heat maps of the output data using gnuplot.


REC-CSP Open Source Site

The REC_CSP open source project contains data sets and software useful for designing cheaper heliostats.


Available on the project site are:

1. Thirty days of three-dimensional wind measurement data taken with ultrasonic anemometers (sampled at ~7 Hz), recorded at several near surface elevations.  The data is presented in the RE and is available for download on the open source site here.

2. A collection of heliostat aerodynamic load data obtained in a NASA wind tunnel and graphically represented in the appendix.  This data is available for download on the open source site here.

3. Matlab software for high-precision, on-target heliostat control with built-in simulation for testing. This is essentially the same software used in the RE and described in the accelerometer sensing and control system design documents.  The source code is available for download here.

Video: Demonstrating single and multiple heliostat control

Hidden mother

Posted by Crafty Dogma at Flickr, via Historical Indulgences, which has another half-dozen examples of this old photographic technique.  See also here and here.

Surströmming

Surströmming... is a northern Swedish dish consisting of fermented Baltic herring. Surströmming is sold in cans, which often bulge during shipping and storage, due to the continued fermentation. When opened, the contents release a strong and sometimes overwhelming odor, which explains why the dish is often eaten outdoors...

[One] explanation of the origins of this method of preservation is that it began long ago, when brining food was quite expensive due to the cost of salt. When fermentation was used, just enough salt was required to keep the fish from rotting. The salt raises the osmotic pressure of the brine above the zone where bacteria responsible for rotting (decomposition of proteins) can prosper and prevents decomposition of fish proteins into oligopeptides and amino acids. Instead the osmotic conditions enable the Haloanaerobium bacteria to prosper and decompose the fish glycogen into organic acids, giving it the sour (acidic) properties...

Because surströmming today contains higher levels of dioxins and PCBs than the permitted levels for fish in the EU, Sweden has had exceptions to these rules. The exception was 2002 to 2011, but an application for renewal of the exemption has been raised to the EU...

In April 2006, several major airlines (such as Air France and British Airways) banned the fish citing that the pressurised cans of fish are potentially explosive. The sale of the fish was subsequently discontinued in Stockholm's international airport. Those who produce the fish have called the airlines' decision "culturally illiterate," claiming that it is a "myth that the tinned fish can explode.

 Text from Wikipedia.   Photo: Swedish "klämma" with surströmming, potatoes and red onion on a "tunnbröd" with butter besides a glass of milk.

"Alien brain hemorrhage" cocktail

To make an alien brain hemorrhage cocktail, fill a shot glass halfway with peach schnapps. Gently pour Bailey's Irish Cream on top. After the shot is almost full, carefully add a small amount of blue curacao. After it settles, add a few drops of grenadine syrup.

Photo and instructions from Latin Rapper, via Neatorama.  I presume you'd have to be already drunk to drink this.

Hemeroplanes - the "snake caterpillar"

This appears to be an intentional mimicry rather than a convergent coincidence, since the caterpillar also engages in some snake-like behavior when threatened.   Read about it at The Night Tour.

Composite photo via フリンジ削除.

Why do university faculty "lean to the left" ?

Excerpts from an op-ed piece in the StarTribune:

That faculties are liberal is beyond dispute. In a rigorous survey, University of British Columbia sociology Prof. Neil Gross concluded, "professors currently compose the most liberal major occupational group in American society."..

Gross and Solon Simmons of George Mason University surveyed more than 1,400 full-time professors at more than 900 American institutions. Only 19.7 percent of professors identified themselves as "any shade of conservative" (compared with 31.9 percent of the general population), while 62.2 percent identified themselves as some flavor of liberal (compared with 23.3 percent of Americans overall).

Gross found variation between disciplines. Social sciences and humanities contained the highest concentration of liberals. Conservatives were as numerous as liberals in business, health sciences, computer science and engineering.

Postulated reasons for these findings are discussed at the link.

The "I'll have what she's having" scene remixed

 

Vimeo link.

Meg Ryan looks younger every time I see this famous clip.   This version was remixed by Matthijs Vlot to include related sounds from other movies.

Do "outdoor dogs" tend to be "miserable?"

That's the claim made in a post at Vet Street:

What compels people to get a dog only to keep it isolated outside, away from the family?... They are animals born to be part of a social structure, a pack or a family, yet this is denied them. They spend their lives on the outside, looking in. The experts say many of these dogs will never really bond with owners who interact with them so little...

I have always had difficulty understanding why people want to keep dogs outside. If keeping a beautiful house and yard are of the utmost importance to you, then don't get a dog. If you know someone in your family can't abide a dog in the house, for whatever reason, then don't get a dog. If you can't let a dog be part of your family, then don't get a dog.

You don't get the benefits of companionship from a dog you see so little. You don't even get much in the way of protection from the pet who has no access to the house. And don't count on outdoor dogs as an early warning system. These animals often become such indiscriminate barkers that you couldn't tell from their sound whether the dogs are barking at a prowler or at a toddler riding a tricycle down the street. Besides, people who keep outdoor dogs seem to become quite good at ignoring the noise they make, as any angry neighbor can vouch.

Outdoor dogs often become a problem to their owners. Bored and lonely, these animals develop any number of bad habits. They dig craters in the yard. They bark endlessly day and night. They become chewers of outdoor furniture, sprinkler heads and siding. And sometimes, without the socialization all dogs need, they become aggressive, ready to bite anyone who comes into their territory.

If you're considering getting a puppy or dog with the intent of keeping him exclusively outside, please reconsider -- for the animal's sake as well as your own and your neighbors'. 

When I was growing up, a small family dog (springer spaniel) was allowed indoors, but our larger dogs (retrievers, labs) had a doghouse in the garage with access to the outdoors.  Nowadays I see large dogs routinely kept indoors by neighbors and relatives. 

Is it unkind to keep them outdoors?

Hillary Clinton as the 2016 Democratic nominee?

From James Fallows' column at The Atlantic:

Let's assume [Obama] wins re-election. I don't think anybody sees Joe Biden, who will by then be 74 as a future President. The Democrats have four years to find and develop a rising star. Who is on the horizon now? I would have to say that on November 7 Hillary would be the odds-on favorite to be the next nominee. She'll likely step down after this term and that will give her four years to catch up on her rest, make another fortune on the private side, burnish her reputation further with Bill's Foundation, and raise a war chest for the election.

She would seem nearly unbeatable. Even now she is one of the few Democrats who seems unassailable. Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann are able to reference her admirably and get applause. They see it as a dig at the President, but he has the last laugh. After they mixed it up, he chose her for the biggest job she's ever had. And he did her the greatest favor imaginable. Rather than spending the last four years in the morass of the Senate, she has been out getting things done in a place where Republicans can't obstruct her.

An explanation for the mysterious blue spheres that fell from the sky in Dorset

YouTube link. 

The story was posted at the BBC yesterday -

Steve Hornsby from Bournemouth said the 3cm diameter balls came raining down late on Thursday afternoon during a hail storm. He found about a dozen of the balls in his garden. He said: "[They're] difficult to pick up, I had to get a spoon and flick them into a jam jar."

The Met Office said the jelly-like substance was "not meteorological".

Mr Hornsby said he was keeping the balls in his fridge while he tried to find out what they were.

Josie Pegg, an applied science research assistant at Bournemouth University, speculated that the apparently strange phenomena might be "marine invertebrate eggs".

I forwarded the link yesterday to friends who have a daughter studying marine biology in Florida.  Today I got an answer.  Look at the video and try to figure it out for yourself first.

The answer came not from a university marine biology department, but from a site called Metabunk:

These almost certainly are gel "water beads" aka "jelly marbles", "Orbeez", or "water marbles". Made from superabsorbent polymers, and used for decorative functions, as kids toys, and to water plants.

Photos and more info at the link, plus this video of the product -

YouTube link. 

- which reminded me that I saw these spheres in a hilarious segment of a QI program.

YouTube link.

St. Olaf choir

YouTube link. 

My family ties to St. Olaf College go back to its founding in 1874, so it was a distinct pleasure for me last night to have the opportunity to take my 93-year-old mother to hear the opening concert in this year's centennial tour by the St. Olaf Choir.  Mom remembers hearing them on campus in the 1930s, and watches every Christmas concert on PBS.

The choir's performance calendar takes them on to Indianapolis, Charleston, Charlotte, Raleigh, Newport News, Bethesda, Cleveland, Urbana, and Chicago in the next two weeks.  The concerts present a mix of ancient and modern music, both sacred and secular/folk.  If you like choral music, these are world-class quality performances.

Beetles

This beetle from Belize, unidentified at the source, has truly remarkable antennae (via Petslady and Neatorama).  I found another impressive one in Wikipedia:

I presume the structures serve the same purpose they do in butterflies and moths - to capture and sense pheromone molecules - but I don't know that for sure.  In any case, they're cool to look at.

p.s. - why is an overhanging, prominent brow (like a Neanderthal) called a "beetle brow?"   (I don't know)

The abbreviated school year

An interesting column in the StarTribune uses a series of calendars to depict the days available for teaching grade-school students.  Above is a calendar of the year (arranged Sept to August), with the summer break blacked out.

Here is the calendar after blacking out weekends and major holidays:

There are some additional calendars at the link, ending with this one, which also blacks out professional development days, conferences, common holidays, spring break, and days for state and standardized testing:

There are only 162 days that wind up not being blacked out.  Author Jeremy Olson asks, "What am I doing as a parent to supplement the apparently limited time in which my kids are at school to learn?" 

The calendars also provide fuel for the endless arguments over teacher salaries.

Andy Murray v. Michael Llorda

YouTube link. 

If this cartoon reflects your attitude toward a tennis match, take a look at these impressive volleys from the Australian Open.

"Magic mushrooms" may help treat depression

USA Today, citing several studies published in peer-reviewed journals, describes beneficial effects of psilocybin:

One study included 30 healthy people who had psilocybin inserted into their blood while magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners measured changes in their brain activity. The scans revealed that psilocybin caused decreased activity in what the researchers described as the brain's "hub" regions -- areas especially well-connected with other areas. That study was published in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The second study included 10 healthy volunteers and found that psilocybin boosted their recall of personal memories and their emotional well-being for up to two weeks. The researchers said this suggests that psilocybin might prove useful as an adjunct to psychotherapy. That study will be published online Thursday in the British Journal of Psychiatry.

A study published last year found that people with anxiety who received a single psilocybin treatment had lower depression scores six months later.

In the 1970s,  Psilocybe cubensis mushroom were readily available in rural areas around Dallas-Fort Worth.  The best places to search for them were cattle pastures, because the 'shrooms had an affinity for growing in or near "cowpies."  When you broke the stem, a slight bluish "bruise" was helpful in confirming the identity.  It produced a pleasant psychedelic effect, lasting for a couple hours, but was a bit hard to titrate since the potency of the mushrooms wasn't always predictable.

Or so I've been told.

Slip-on coasters for wine glasses

We have in a kitchen drawer somewhere a couple stretchable cloth "sleeves" that can be slipped over a cold can or glass in the summer to absorb the sweating and thus protect furniture; this is the first time I've seen the concept applied to wine glasses. 

These felt coasters come in different colors, which allows party guests to keep track of whose glass is whose.

Created by Dimmalimm, via if it's hip, it's here.

Re the proposed "cut" in military spending

A reminder from iWatch that the much-talked-about budgetary changes are actually smaller increases, not actual decreases.

Actually, describing it as a cut is a misnomer. The administration's ten-year plan actually calls for an increase in the national security budget over the next decade — but it would scale back the 18 percent boost previously set for that period...

Before Obama announced his plan, the Pentagon was counting on annual budget increases over the next 10 years -- totaling roughly $500 billion, according to Panetta. While the new plan calls for its spending to drop in 2013, the budget would then revert to growth, administration officials say. They have not said what the average annual increase would be from 2017 to 2021, but two senior administration officials who asked not to be named said the result after 10 years would still be a larger budget, even after inflation is taken into account.

That means Obama’s proposed changes will shift actual spending less than one percent annually. If approved, the change would be smaller than the genuine reductions that followed the Korean War (20 percent), the Vietnam War (30 percent) and the Cold War (30 percent)...

Obama said on January 5 that after his proposed changes, U.S. military spending will still be “larger than roughly the next 10 nations combined.” He did not list them, but those countries are, in rough order (according to data compiled by the International Institute of Strategic Studies and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute), China, Britain, France, Russia, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Germany, India, Italy, and Brazil. Experts have complained that Obama understated the American predominance, by not saying “the next 17 or 18 nations combined,” but China’s military budget is opaque, making this calculation imprecise...

But there is no dispute that the higher capabilities of modern weaponry make simple numerical comparisons inadequate. Panetta’s airplane tally, for example, only counted manned airplanes, while 41 percent of the service’s winged inventory now consists of unmanned drones...

More at the link.

Pokerwork and pyrography

One of my memorable possessions as a child in the 1950s was a "woodburning" toy similar to the one shown here (scroll down).  It was basically a soldering iron, packaged with some simple drawings on wood that you would trace over with the heated tip, creating your own work of art (accompanied by a very satisfying acrid smell).

The principle of pyrography ("writing with fire") is ancient:

The process has been practiced by a number of cultures including the Egyptians and some African tribes since the dawn of recorded time...  It was known in China from the time of the Han dynasty, where it was known as "Fire Needle Embroidery". During the Victorian era, the invention of pyrography machines sparked a widespread interest in the craft, and it was at this time that the term "pyrography" was coined (previously the name "pokerwork" had been most widely used)... Pyrography is a traditional folk art in many European countries, including Romania, Hungary, as well as countries such as Argentina in South America.

The two images embedded above come from the portfolio of modern-day pyrographic artist Julie Bender, via Dudecraft.

There's lots more to read re pyrography and pokerwork.  The most comprehensive source I've found this morning is at Antique Art in Pyrography, whence the following old engraving:

"Years and years ago, when art and conviviality went hand in hand in England, and when the tavern was a clubhouse, it was the custom of the artists to exercise their passing inspirations on the walls around them. A poker, heated red-hot in the fireplace, was their tool. With it they sketched faces and figures—a memory of a scene of nature—an idea for a new ornament—a cartoon of some public man." 

See also the Powerhouse Museum's description of Australian folk pokerwork (1930s wall plaque with bush landscape shown).

Guitar spin fail

YouTube link.

Kitteh Carryitall, Party Animal Free Pattern by Lisa Bunting Thoms of Q.D. Patooties

I just LOVE softies - especially the softies designed by Lisa Bunting Thoms of Q.D. Patooties.  Lisa's designs are always sweet, uplifting and cheery and I always walk away from her blog feeling GOOD.  Perhaps I'm her #1 fan.  Probably not.  I suspect that Lisa has many, many fans.

If you love softies like I do or love Lisa's designs you'll be happy to know that Lisa Bunting Thoms has a new free pattern on Q.D. Patooties. Have fun making" Kitteh Carryitall, Party Animal!"  I know I will.

Kitteh Carryitall, Party Animal FREE Pattern 

Copyright © 2012 - Written By Lisa Bunting Thoms of Q.D. Patooties

Here's the instructions and what Lisa said about her pattern: Guess what time it is? Time for a FREE pattern from the q.D.paToOtieS creative vault. Creative vault? Really? Geez, I only wish I had one of those around here. No, unfortunately I have to depend on the ol' gray matter to come up with this stuff.

So without further ado, please meet Kitty Carryitall, Party Animal! She is all decked out for a Mew Year's Eve Party. Okay, she's a little late for that but she's not too late to celebrate the Chinese New Year which starts this Monday, January 23rd (the year of the Dragon) or any other event you may need her to attend.

All you need to do is to click on the pattern. After you click, the pattern will enlarge. Then, just right click and "Save Image As" to save it to your computer.  Then print it out.  All of the instructions are printed directly on the pattern.

But to synopsize, you've got 1/8" seam allowance built in the pattern. You're going to print it out, trace it onto your fabric, cut out all of the pattern pieces, work on the front of the pattern first by sewing on all of Kitteh's facial features, sew the back and front together, whip out a tail, embellish anyway you'd like and most of all ENJOY! Whew!

Some ideas on how to party with your newfound purrfect pal. Make one up for your friends birthday, she'll be happy to attend - you might even be able to make a handmade Birthday card to fit in her front pocket. Make a black one for Halloween, put a little candy corn in her pocket and let her scare up a couple of party guests. Make one in red for Christmas and add a beard - some of the cute gift cards I've seen in the store around the holidays should just fit in her front pocket! At any event, she'll be the life of the party. Enjoy and happy crafting! 

CLICK Picture Above to Enlarge

Please respect Lisa's TERMS OF USE:    My FREE tutorials, patterns, and how-to's are for personal use only and are not not intended for commercial use. They may not be copied, reprinted, emailed, or reproduced and distributed in any manner without my permission. 

Lisa's Bio: Lisa is a professional teddy bear artist selling heirloom quality collectible bears to Adults and has been making bears professionally since November 1997. Her creations have been nominated for several Awards including the TITA, Teddy Bear Scene Reader's Choice Awards and the Ace Awards. They've also been included on a regular basis in many of the major doll and crafts magazines.

Copyright © 2007-2012 - All Rights Reserved - Lisa Bunting Thoms of Q.D. Patooties at http://qdpatooties.blogspot.com.

Please visit Lisa's Q.D. Patooties Spoonflower Fabric Shop and her  Q.D. Patooties Etsy Shop .

How To Make Paper Free Tutorial By Vicki Welsh of Field Trips In Fiber

Have you ever wanted to learn how to make paper? Well, if you have then you'll be happy to know that Vicki Welsh of Field Trips In Fiber has a wonderful tutorial on her blog showing you what to do with all those little scraps. I hope you enjoy Vicki's tutorial.

How To Make Paper

Copyright © 2011- All Rights Reserved - Written By Vicki Welsh of Field Trips In Fiber.

Here's what Vicki had to say about her making paper tutorial: There are lots of creative ways to recycle all of the paper that finds it's way into our homes. One thing I like to do is to make new paper! I created this tutorial of the method that I use to make paper.

Please respect Vicki's Terms of Use: Tutorial, text & images are the property of Vicki Welsh. Please do not copy or distribute in any form for any reason without my permission!

Vicki's Bio - I am 51, married 23 years and no kids (by choice). I live near Richmond, VA and am obsessed with anything to do with fabric and thread! I sew quilts, dye fabric, longarm quilting and just make lots of things. I started this blog as a way to chronicle my sewing goals and adventures and retired recently to become a full time fabric dyer.

Copyright © 2006-2011 - All Rights Reserved - Written By Vicki Welsh of Field Trips In Fiber - Adventures in quilting, hand dyed fabric and fiber art. Vicki is a fiber artist and fiber dyer. Please visit her "Vicki Welsh - Hand Dyed Fabrics" Etsy Shop.

Pocketed Notebook Cover Free Tutorial By Vicki Welsh of Field Trips In Fiber

If you're thinking of making a notebook cover, notepad cover, or Blackberry cover then you'll be happy to know that Vicki Welsh of Field Trips In Fiber has a wonderful tutorial on her blog showing you how to make a pocketed notebook cover.   I hope you enjoy Vicki's tutorial.

Pocketed Notebook Cover

Copyright © 2010- All Rights Reserved - Written By Vicki Welsh of Field Trips In Fiber.

Here's what Vicki had to say about her pocketed notebook cover: Last month I made one of these pocketed notebook covers for my friend, Anne. It's designed for a large spiral notebook and has pockets to hold her Blackberry and some pens.

Then people saw it. Then there were demands for more covers. Being a good friend, I met the demands. I also created a tutorial that was posted to 3 Creative Studios yesterday.

I only wish I had thought of this design while I was still working and dropping my Blackberry as I moved from meeting to meeting. But now you can make them for your office mates and there's plenty of time before Christmas to make one for everyone!

Please respect Vicki's Terms of Use: Tutorial, text & images are the property of Vicki Welsh. Please do not copy or distribute in any form for any reason without my permission! Note: You can make these to sell at craft shows if you want. A friend makes them and they are big sellers for her! You may not mass produce these for commercial sale.

Vicki's Bio - I am 51, married 23 years and no kids (by choice). I live near Richmond, VA and am obsessed with anything to do with fabric and thread! I sew quilts, dye fabric, longarm quilting and just make lots of things. I started this blog as a way to chronicle my sewing goals and adventures and retired recently to become a full time fabric dyer.

Copyright © 2006-2011 - All Rights Reserved - Written By Vicki Welsh of Field Trips In Fiber - Adventures in quilting, hand dyed fabric and fiber art. Vicki is a fiber artist and fiber dyer. Please visit her "Vicki Welsh - Hand Dyed Fabrics" Etsy Shop.

"Diner lingo"

Selections from an assemblage at Wikipedia:

Adam & Eve on a raft & wreck 'em: two scrambled eggs on toast

Baled hay: shredded wheat cereal

Cops & Robbers: Donuts and Coffee.

Customer will take a chance: hash

Don't cry over it: omit the onions

Drag it through Wisconsin: serve with cheese (e.g. a cheeseburger)

Drown the kids: boiled eggs

Fish eyes or Cat's eyes: tapioca pudding

Foreign entanglements: spaghetti

Hockey puck: a hamburger, well done

Mother and child reunion: chicken and egg sandwich

Noah's boy: a slice of ham (Ham was Noah's second son)

Put a hat on it: add ice cream

Shit on a shingle/S.O.S.: minced dried beef with gravy on toast

Two cows, make them cry: Two hamburgers with onions

Zeppelins in a fog: sausages and mashed potatoes 

 Many of these come from a column at Diner Talk.

Lobster tails for hospital patients

Health-care related posts seems to elicit the most vigorous and conflicting comments on this blog, so here's a little grist for the mill, from a column in the New York Times:

The bed linens were by Frette, Italian purveyors of high-thread-count sheets to popes and princes. The bathroom gleamed with polished marble. Huge windows displayed panoramic East River views. And in the hush of her $2,400 suite, a man in a black vest and tie proffered an elaborate menu and told her, “I’ll be your butler.” 

It was Greenberg 14 South, the elite wing on the new penthouse floor of NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell hospital. Pampering and décor to rival a grand hotel, if not a Downton Abbey, have long been the hallmark of such “amenities units,” often hidden behind closed doors at New York’s premier hospitals. But the phenomenon is escalating here and around the country, health care design specialists say, part of an international competition for wealthy patients willing to pay extra, even as the federal government cuts back hospital reimbursement in pursuit of a more universal and affordable American medical system..

A waterfall, a grand piano and the image of a giant orchid grace the soaring ninth floor atrium of McKeen, leading to refurbished rooms that, like those in the hospital’s East 68th Street penthouse, cost patients $1,000 to $1,500 a day, and can be combined. That fee is on top of whatever base rate insurance pays to the hospital, or the roughly $4,500 a day that foreigners are charged, according to the hospital’s international services department...

In Eleven West’s library on a recent Friday, Nancy Hemenway, a senior financial services executive, was reading the paper in a spa-style bathrobe. “I was supposed to be in Buenos Aires last week taking tango lessons, but unfortunately I hurt my back, so I’m here with my concierge,” she said. 

“I’m perfectly at home here — totally private, totally catered,” she added. “I have a primary-care physician who also acts as ringmaster for all my other doctors. And I see no people in training — only the best of the best.”

That last comment reminds me that some years ago a midwestern university hospital (which I will leave unnamed) had an upper floor reserved for wealthy patients, with posh accommodations, special food, and innumerable amenities.  When physicians were on morning rounds, the students and housestaff would stay behind while the attendings went to see their private patients.

However, at night if there was an emergency and the attending was in a distant suburb, the housestaff and fellows were called and had to correct problems with electrolyte imbalance, improve inappropriate ventilator settings, or detect missed diagnoses.  Many of the attending physicians were less procedurally competent (and frankly less practically knowledgeable) than the "physicians in training," who joked (among themselves) that the only good thing for the patients in the top floor suite was that the location was "close to a hospital."

One final salient comment from the Times story:

“These kinds of patients, they’re paying cash — they’re the best kind of patient to have,” she added. “Theoretically, it trickles down.” 

This is all very complicated, re the finances, re the medical implications, re the ethics etc.  I'll defer any additional commentary; there's much more in the Times and in a related story in Salon.

Photo: Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times

A boy's plaid dress (1854)

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s 1851 purchase and subsequent renovation of Balmoral Castle in the Scottish Highlands caused a fad for plaid to sweep the fashion world. Fine tartans in wool and silk became the most desired fashion fabrics for all ages and styles of dress.

From Ye Olde Fashion.

"Beer oyster" explained

This question was posed at Reddit:

At an engagement party last weekend, my husband enjoyed a Beck's. He decided he would like to enjoy another and so opened this bottle, took a sip and cringed. His beer tasted awful and he wiped off what looked like dirt from the bottle cap. He held the beer to the light and the liquid was murky through the green glass there was something floating in it. We go in to the kitchen, pour the beer down the sink and something slipped out. I turned it over and it kind of looked like a mushroom and smelled a whole lot like shit. This image is the bottle and the offending object.

Answer below the fold (it's not offensive - just giving you a moment to ponder...)
Two of the comments:

That's a Beer Oyster. It was caused by a pasteurization failure, the beer was not heated to the right temperature. Leftover yeast/bacteria were able to use the leftover air in the top of the bottle to survive and make a slimy, stinky mess. Source: My mother and brother work for major beer companies.

Close. At 2-3 minutes the pasteurization of 140F isn't going kill the yeast. Also through fermentation the environment is already inhospitable to the yeast. It has fermented out and can ferment no more. If it isn't fermenting it isn't reproducing. It isn't building yeast cake. Even so this would appear as a light film on the bottom as in a bottle conditioned beer.
What you are seeing is most likely a plate filter failure. It's going to be a mix of proteins, yeast and hop matter. Filter probably let loose a clogged bit at the end. It's unlikely to be an infection if the others were unaffected. Source: Homebrewer for 15 years, have brewed at a micro brewery.

Selections from the November "Harper's Index"

• Amount employees of private-equity firm Bain Capital have donated to the campaiign of its co-founder Mitt Romney: $69,500

• To the Obama campaign: $119,900

• Percentage of all Americans who consider themselves part of the top 1 percent of U.S. earners: 13

 

• Miminum number of U.S. colleges that offer courses in unmanned-drone operation: 5

• Portion of the Veterans Health Administration's budget devoted to veterans with mental-health or addiction problems: 1/3

• Chance that a U.S. worker is of normal weight and without a chronic health problem: 1 in 7

• Number of working-age people for every person  over sixty-five worldwide in 1950: 11.7

• Number today: 8.6

• Projected humber in 2050: 3.9

The President gets mail

A pair of items from this month's Harper's Index:

• Number of letters from Americans President Barack Obama reads each evening: 10

• Number of staffers in the Corespondence Office responsible for seelecting those letters from the 11,000 received each day: 7

There's a lot to ponder there.  First of all, it's not a Democrat/Republican thing - the same must have been happening since the office of the presidency was established.  But look how it must have ramped up - now 11 thousand letters every day.

And seven staff persons just to sort through that mail.  One knee-jerk reaction would be that this is an example of how government has become bloated.  But on the other hand many of these letters are from people with genuine concerns, and probably the staff forward items to relevant congressmen or government agencies.

Still - 11,000 letters every day.  And how many emails?  Interesting to think about.

Addendum:  A hat tip to Chuck for finding this relevant story at ABC News.

New USDA plant hardiness zone map

I had heard that a revision was in the works, and it has been eagerly awaited by gardeners.

The 2012 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map is the standard by which gardeners and growers can determine which plants are most likely to thrive at a location. The map is based on the average annual minimum winter temperature, divided into 10-degree F zones.

The embed above is a static image, but if you go to this USDA page, you can access an interactive map with detailed state maps.

Most locations in the US are now in warmer zones; we've gone from 4b to 5a in just the last ten years.

Buying/selling something on Craigslist ??

Why not meet your seller/buyer at the police station?  The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel explains:

After a recent rash of robberies involving people trying to sell items on the web site Craigslist, Milwaukee police on Monday encouraged people to conclude their transactions at perhaps one of the safest places in town - the local police station...

A 33-year-old man wanting to sell a cell phone met a suspect at the gas station. The suspect got into the victim's car and forced him drive to the back of the parking lot, where he threatened the victim with a small revolver. He went through the victim's pockets and took $40. After a fight, the robber and another suspect stole two cell phones from the victim. Other robberies of people wanting to sell iPads and vehicles happened Jan. 15 and 19...

"This is nothing new. It's happening all over the country," police officer Lisa Staffold said Monday. "The media has deemed it 'robbery by appointment' because you're posting ads, you're selling your iPhones, your iPads, your vehicles, and when you go to a meeting location, you're being robbed."

The crimes are done by either pretend-buyers who show up to rob the seller of the advertised item, or pretend-sellers, who want to steal money from the buyer.

Police hope to put a stop to the robberies by having sellers and buyers meet at a safe place. "If they don't want to meet you at a safe place, if they don't want to meet you at a police district, that should be a red flag, an indicator: Don't do business with that individual," Staffold said.

Very clever idea, found at The Consumerist.

Iceberg

Photographed in the Antarctic near Peterman Island by Kseniia Maiukova (Caters News), via The Telegraph.

A new life form discovered in Canada

The Burgess Shale continues to produce amazing fossils.  PhysOrg has a summary:

Officially named Siphusauctum gregarium, fossils reveal a tulip-shaped creature that is about the length of a dinner knife (approximately 20 centimetres or eight inches) and has a unique filter feeding system.

Siphusauctum has a long stem, with a calyx – a bulbous cup-like structure – near the top which encloses an unusual filter feeding system and a gut. The animal is thought to have fed by filtering particles from water actively pumped into its calyx through small holes... Most interesting is that this feeding system appears to be unique among animals.

And some additional details from EarthTimes:

Siphusauctum gregarium looked like a tulip, about 20cm (or 8ins) long, filter feeding from the floor of the sea. The body or "calyx" is enclosed by a sheath, with six small filtering holes and a terminal anus. It has a large stomach, followed by a conical gut and straight section of intestine. Six radially-symmetrical sections contain the filtering combs... Only the stomach, and anus of the digestive tract show any phylogenetic relationships, but exactly which relationship is up in the air. Hence the new family, new genus, new species, in fact, new everything.

TL;DR - it's like a tulip with an anus.  Next fossil, please.

Reconstruction image artwork: © Marianne Collins.

DeBeers settles a class-action lawsuit

DeBeers has announced a settlement of a class action lawsuit.  Here are the allegations:

The lawsuits claim that the largest suppliers of diamonds in the world—De Beers S.A. and its associated companies—violated antitrust, unfair competition, and consumer-protection laws by monopolizing diamond supplies, conspiring to fix, raise, and control diamond prices, and disseminating false and misleading advertising...

And the company will pay millions of dollars -

...the Settlement provides that the Defendants will pay a total of $295 million for the benefit of Class Members plus up to $7 million for the costs of providing notice of the Settlement terms to the Indirect Purchaser Class.. The Settlement provides that $22.5 million will be paid to Direct Purchaser Class Members who submit valid claims, and $272.5 million will be paid to Indirect Purchaser Class Members who submit valid claims.

The payments go to resellers and customers, the latter defined as -

All persons located in the United States who purchased any diamond or diamond jewelry or other products containing gem diamonds for personal use and not for resale between January 1, 1994 and March 31, 2006. For example, Consumers include people who purchased diamond jewelry to wear or to give as a gift. 

However, while the "sightholders" (companies reselling the diamonds) get an estimated US $173,000 each, consumers fare less well -

"...consumers are estimated to receive US $1.15 each... But here is the real insult:  The court agreed that any payout under $10.00 does not have to be paid..."

The funds designated for consumers ($135 million) but not paid out reverts to the general settlement fund, 25% of which goes to the lawyers in legal fees.

Class-action lawsuits really suck (unless you are an attorney).  I wasn't involved in this one, but I've been a "participant" in a couple during my life, and they are never worth the time and effort.

Via the newsletter of the Madison Gem and Mineral Club.