How Dracula resembles a monkey

The "Dracula" in question is a species of orchid.  These two photos are of the Ecuadorian Dracula simia.  For additional pix, including one of the European "monkey orchid," see the link at Why Evolution is True.

"Europe officials say al-Qaida-trained Norwegian is ready for an attack on West"

From the Associated Press, as cited by the StarTribune:

A Norwegian man has received terrorist training from al-Qaida's offshoot in Yemen and is awaiting orders to carry out an attack on the West, officials from three European security agencies told The Associated Press on Monday.

Western intelligence officials have long feared such a scenario — a convert to Islam who is trained in terrorist methods and can blend in easily in Europe and the United States, traveling without visa restrictions.

Officials from three European security agencies confirmed Monday the man is "operational," meaning he has completed his training and is about to receive a target...

Next step: curtailment of the civil liberties of persons with white skin; this will complement the profiling currently underway on persons of color, and pretty much complete the dermatologic spectrum.

And the reason they release this broadly vague information to the public at large?  So that all of us will not only now become suspicioius of all white people, but we will also understand why we are being asked to submit quietly to authority.

It never ends...

Striptease

YouTube link. 

I honestly don't know if this is "safe for work" or not - it probably depends on where you work.  You'll have to take a peek and decide for yourself.

Doily Snowflake Ornament Free Tutorial by Christie Hurst of A Lemon Squeezy Home

Any time during the year when I see something cute that I can use for the holidays I always bookmark it or print off a copy for my holiday decorating "to do" folder.  Then just before the holidays I decide which project I'm going to do that year. This year I'm bookmarking the doily snowflake ornament tutorial by Christie Hurst.

Doily Snowflake Ornament: Tutorial

Copyright © 2011 - All Rights Reserved - Christie Hurst of A Lemon Squeezy Home 

Here's what Christie had to say about her tutorial: I posted this on Craft Snob a couple weeks ago and thought I better hurry and post anything Christmas related here while they can be used.

I’m going to show you how extremely quick and easy this doily ornament is.  My 6 year old said it looks like a snowflake, so we’ll call it the Doily Snowflake Ornament.  I think it’s a great starting point for many beautiful things you can imagine with this ornament.

Please respect Christie's TERMS OF USE: Unless stated otherwise, you may use any of the items or tutorials I post for personal use. If you are wanting to sell items made from my tutorials, please ask me for permission!

If you make and post anything that I came up with, please post a link to my blog. If you sell any items on my website that was my idea, then you must post a link giving me credit (after asking permission to sell first).

Just give credit where it is due! Happy crafting!

Copyright © 2012- All Rights Reserved - Christie Hurst of Lemon Squeezy Shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/lemonsqueezyshop. Please visit her A Lemon Squeezy Home blog at http://alemonsqueezyhome.blogspot.com/

Chunky Shimmer Bangles Free Tutorial by Alisa Burke

If you like bangles and love accessorizing with all different kinds then you'll be happy to know that Alisa Burke has a wonderful tutorial showing you how to make chunky shimmer bangles.

chunky shimmer bangles

Copyright © 2011 - All Rights Reserved - Written by Alisa Burke of Alisa Burke

Here's what Alisa had to say about her tutorial: I love accessories and I am always looking for new ways to create my own bling.

Please respect Alisa's TERMS OF USE:  I work really hard to come up with my art, tutorials, ideas, classes, inspiration and more. Please understand that everything I post on my blog is for your personal use only - not for resale or redistribution. Please contact me if you are interested in using anything that I share online-thank you!!!

For more information on Alisa's Terms of Use please CLICK HERE.

Alisa's Bio: Alisa Burke is a freelance painter and mixed media artist who studied fine art at Portland State University. With a background in painting and printmaking, a desire to explore and push materials, Alisa is always looking for new ways to break the rules and redefine art. She draws inspiration from street art, graffiti, art history and fashion and it is not uncommon to find her digging through the trash in hopes of recycling something unique use in her artwork.

Alisa’s paintings have been exhibited in a variety of galleries and her handmade, painted accessories are carried in a number of boutiques across the country. Her artwork has been featured in publications such as Cloth Paper Scissors, Quilting Arts, Where Women Create, Somerset Studios’ Haute Handbags, Art Doll Quarterly, and the University of San Diego Magazine. In addition to making art, Alisa teaches a variety of workshops nation wide. Alisa appeared as a guest artist on the DIY Network show Craft Lab and book Canvas Remix was released in spring 2008.

Copyright © 2011 - All Rights Reserved - Alisa Burke of Alisa Burke.

Please visit her Alisa Burke website at http://www.alisaburke.com and her Alisa Burke - Redefine Creativity blog at http://www.alisaburke.blogspot.com. Her Alisa Burke Etsy shop is at http://alisaburke.etsy.com.

Glitter Magnets Free Tutorial by Carina Envoldsen-Harris of Carina's Craftblog

Everyone loves to decorate with glitter.  If you do, too,  then you'll love the glitter magnets idea from Carina Envoldsen-Harris.  Enjoy!

Glitter magnets - make your own

Copyright © 2010 - All Rights Reserved - Written by Carina Envoldsen-Harris of Carina's Craftblog  blog.

Here's what Carina had to say about her tutorial: Hey, how's your Saturday? The snow is kinda melting round here. A bit sad, but I guess it will make life easier for a lot of peeps, eh?

I had some fun making these magnetic glitter hearts and stars. It's really easy too!

Please respect Carina's TERMS OF USE: BE NICE: DON'T STEAL - I spend hours thinking up projects, taking pictures, processing the pictures and writing tutorials and posts. So please respect the work that goes into this and don't steal my content. You are welcome to use the tutorials and patterns for your own personal crafting pleasure. And if you like them, feel free to share links to them. You can even borrow an image or two if you link back here. Sharing is nice, it's what makes the crafty blogosphere so great! But stealing other people's content and passing it off as your own is not nice at all. So don't be that guy. Or gal. Translating my tutorials or removing my copyright notice from images and posting the content as your own is not allowed. Thank you. Got a question about something? Want to know a bit about me? Need help with something? Check out the fancy pants FAQ page!

Carina's Bio: Carina is a Danish girl living in Essex, England with her husband. She's an artist and crafter who loves to crochet, draw, sew, paint, and embroider.

Copyright © 2010 - All Rights Reserved - Written by Carina Envoldsen-Harris of Carina's Craftblog blog. Please visit Carina's new Carina's Craftblog blog at http://carinascraftblog.wardi.dk ,  her Wardi.dk website, her Carina Wardi Etsy shop, and her Polka & Bloom Etsy shop .

Glittery Pine Cones Free Tutorial by Carina Envoldsen-Harris of Carina's Craftblog

Looking for a quick and easy project to add some glitter to your holiday decorating this year.  If so, you'll want to check out the glittery pine cones tutorial by Carina Envoldsen-Harris.  Have fun decorating.

Glittery pine cones - tutorial
Copyright © 2010 - All Rights Reserved - Written by Carina Envoldsen-Harris of Carina's Craftblog blog.

Here's what Carina had to say about her tutorial: Maybe you are all done with all your Christmas preparations and fancy something to while away the hours? Or, you are busy with all the wrapping and baking etc and need to keep your kids and/or husband occupied for half an hour?

This is the perfect project! And pretty too!

Please respect Carina's TERMS OF USE: BE NICE: DON'T STEAL - I spend hours thinking up projects, taking pictures, processing the pictures and writing tutorials and posts. So please respect the work that goes into this and don't steal my content. You are welcome to use the tutorials and patterns for your own personal crafting pleasure. And if you like them, feel free to share links to them. You can even borrow an image or two if you link back here. Sharing is nice, it's what makes the crafty blogosphere so great! But stealing other people's content and passing it off as your own is not nice at all. So don't be that guy. Or gal. Translating my tutorials or removing my copyright notice from images and posting the content as your own is not allowed. Thank you. Got a question about something? Want to know a bit about me? Need help with something? Check out the fancy pants FAQ page!

Carina's Bio: Carina is a Danish girl living in Essex, England with her husband. She's an artist and crafter who loves to crochet, draw, sew, paint, and embroider.

Copyright © 2010 - All Rights Reserved - Written by Carina Envoldsen-Harris of Carina's Craftblog blog. Please visit Carina's new Carina's Craftblog blog at http://carinascraftblog.wardi.dk ,  her Wardi.dk website, her Carina Wardi Etsy shop, and her Polka & Bloom Etsy shop .

Cheap Trash Bag Halloween Decorating Free Tutorial by Jessica Jones

Are you looking for a cheap and easy way to decorate for your Halloween party this year? If so you'll want to check out Jessica Jones cheap trash bag Halloween decorating idea.

Cheap, trash bag Halloween decorating

Copyright © 2011- All Rights Reserved - Written By  Jessica Jones of Jessica Jones.

Here's what Jessica had to say about her tutorial:  In a burst of festivity, I decided we should have some Halloween decorations in the house. Something 1) dramatic, 2) super cheap, and 3) didn't require me to go to the store. Behold: trash bag spiderwebs.

Please respect Jessica's TERMS OF USE:  You're welcome to link to my How About Orange blog or use a single image and brief description to link back to any post. Republishing posts in their entirety is prohibited without permission.

Copyright © 2011 - All Rights Reserved - Jessica Jones of Jessica Jones. Jessica is a professional graphic and textile designer.

Please visit her Jessica Jones website @ http://www.jessicajonesdesign.com/ and her How About Orange blog @ http://howaboutorange.blogspot.com/.

Upcycled Holiday Sparkle Earrings Free Tutorial by Alisa Burke

Do you like bangle earrings? If you do you'll be pleased to know that Alisa Burke has a wonderful tutorial showing you how to make upcycled holiday sparkle earrings from metallic wrapping.

upcycled holiday sparkle earrings

Copyright © 2010 - All Rights Reserved - Written by Alisa Burke of Alisa Burke

Here's what Alisa had to say about her tutorial: Before you throw out all that holiday decor, cards and wrapping paper, take a second look- perhaps there is a unique way to recycle or upcycle all that Christmas sparkle? I decided to turn all of my metallic wrapping and decoration into some sparkly earrings- just in time for New Years Eve!

Please respect Alisa's TERMS OF USE:  I work really hard to come up with my art, tutorials, ideas, classes, inspiration and more. Please understand that everything I post on my blog is for your personal use only - not for resale or redistribution. Please contact me if you are interested in using anything that I share online-thank you!!!

For more information on Alisa's Terms of Use please CLICK HERE.

Alisa's Bio: Alisa Burke is a freelance painter and mixed media artist who studied fine art at Portland State University. With a background in painting and printmaking, a desire to explore and push materials, Alisa is always looking for new ways to break the rules and redefine art. She draws inspiration from street art, graffiti, art history and fashion and it is not uncommon to find her digging through the trash in hopes of recycling something unique use in her artwork.

Alisa’s paintings have been exhibited in a variety of galleries and her handmade, painted accessories are carried in a number of boutiques across the country. Her artwork has been featured in publications such as Cloth Paper Scissors, Quilting Arts, Where Women Create, Somerset Studios’ Haute Handbags, Art Doll Quarterly, and the University of San Diego Magazine. In addition to making art, Alisa teaches a variety of workshops nation wide. Alisa appeared as a guest artist on the DIY Network show Craft Lab and book Canvas Remix was released in spring 2008.

Copyright © 2010 - All Rights Reserved - Alisa Burke of Alisa Burke.

Please visit her Alisa Burke website at http://www.alisaburke.com and her Alisa Burke - Redefine Creativity blog at http://www.alisaburke.blogspot.com. Her Alisa Burke Etsy shop is at http://alisaburke.etsy.com.

Everyday life at Oak Ridge

Two images from a photoessay at The Atlantic's In Focus column, depicting life at the Oak Ridge (Tennessee) facility of the Manhattan Project in the 1940s.

BTW, I'll bet the kid in the top photo wishes he had kept those comic books.  That Captain Marvel, Jr. #31 from 1945 is listed at $150 on eBay right now.

Photo credit James E. Westcott/DOE (upper) and Ed Westcott/DOE.

How killer whales coordinate their attack

YouTube link. 

This is truly impressive.  To dislodge a seal from an ice floe, they don't bump into the floe (at the risk of even a minor injury to themselves), but rather create a wave that accomplishes the end result.  And they do so in perfect synchronicity. How do they learn when to dive in order to maximize the wave crest?  Wow.

"Will run for food"

YouTube link. 

As reported by the BBC:

A stray dog has completed a 1700km journey across China after joining a cycle race from Sichuan province to Tibet.

The dog, nicknamed "Xiaosa", joined the cyclists after one of them gave him food. He ran with them for 24 days, covering up to 60km a day, and climbing 12 mountains.

And he has those short little legs!

Addendum/amendment/clarification:  A tip of the hat to Nolandda, who found a report here indicating that while the dog "accompanied" the cyclists on their journey, it did not run the entire distance; they built a cage to carry her on portions of the trip  (and in fact some of the cyclists took the bus when the road was too steep).

John F. Kennedy demonstrates his exotropia

These two "photobooth" photos of JFK and Jackie seem to show the president with a laterally-deviated left eye.  A quick search this morning reveals a number of casual references to JFK having had a "lazy eye" (exotropia).

Photos from Retronaut, via Neatorama.

A "grannypod" in the back yard

A story in the New York Times details an alternative solution to caring for an infirm elderly parent. 

They ordered a MEDCottage — a prefabricated 12-by-24-foot bedroom-bathroom-kitchenette unit that can be set up as a free-standing structure in their backyard. It’s more than a miniature house — it’s decked out with high-tech monitoring and safety features that rival those of many nursing homes...

The cottage is laid out as an open-plan apartment with a kitchen area (equipped with a microwave, small refrigerator and washer-dryer combo), a bed area and a bathroom large enough in which to maneuver a wheelchair. The utilities and plumbing connect to the primary residence.

It's very expensive, but so is nursing home care:

The cottage costs about $85,000 new; Mr. Dupin’s distributors will buy it back for about $38,000 after 24 months of use. “If you compare it to nursing home costs, which can run $6,000 to $8,000 per month in Virginia, even higher in New York, that’s cheap,” said Mr. Dupin.

Of course, unlike nursing homes, granny pods don’t come equipped with 24-hour professional care and three meals a day. Hiring a health care aide (around $19 an hour) just during weekdays can easily add another $39,000 per year. But a growing number of elderly people — 88 percent of those over 65 — say they want to live in their own homes, in their own communities, as they age.

More details at the link, and at the company's home page.

How to circum-incise your weiner

YouTube link. 

Totally safe for work.

"Unreconstructed white supremacists - inbred, half mad, speaking zombie German"

Last week I was looking in my "Things To Do" folder and encountered a book review from the Atlantic that I had tucked away 18 years ago:

Forgotten Fatherland: The Search for Elisabeth Nietzsche, by Ben Macintyre (1992).
The intrepid Macintyre took a boat trip into the Paraguayan jungle in 1991 in search of the surviving inhabitants of Nueva Germania—an abortive "Aryan" colony founded in the late nineteenth century by the ghastly Elisabeth Nietzsche, racist sister of the philosopher. He found a weird village of unreconstructed white supremacists—inbred, half mad, many of them still speaking a kind of zombie German—and heard some curious and frightening stories about Josef Mengele. A true-life Heart of Darkness. 

It sounded fascinating at the time, and still does, so yesterday I obtained the book from the library.  If you've read it, please feel free to comment.

And yes, my TTD folder does have items 18 years old.  Sigh...

Addendum:  Hat tips to Hero for Hire and to Bub for leading me to this related video from Vice: Vice link.

Addendum #2:  See also this link found by Mark.

Russian roulette for your next family reunion

YouTube link.

Highlights from the championship of the World Egg Throwing Federation (it's real).

Discplines here (throwing, relay, Russian roulette, trebuchet).
Rules here.

Remarkable

You're looking at a photo of Queen Elizabeth shaking hands with a former commander of the Irish Republican Army ("Mr McGuinness was a senior member of the IRA when it killed the Queen's cousin Lord Mountbatten in a bomb blast in 1979.)  Via.

1,143,839,622,748,050,000,000,000,000 sonnets

Here are two of them:

When first the gods lie mounted on a tray
Life's word among the humanist reply.
This order ends the fruitless Roman way
See towns through peace, man's chosen alibi.

On frail death comes the lurid pageant-shows:
Some trail cut and a rustic honeybee,
The pleasing county dwarf, a brittle hose;
The one that learned should miss eternity.

That then was hailed The Perilous Frontier
While modest strangers name the newborn four
Will hopes on that regard today pass near?
Felled converts want the humorist Al Gore.

Transport the blood and educate this chum
The motions granted to the faceless bum.

And:

Dream on while students go into the fray
The shallow pen our immigrants defy.
The new-found milder terrorists sashay
To now abuse one charming, speechless Thai.

Afraid, these contemplate our highs and lows:
This balance-tried secure autonomy,
Truth-leaning ways, the fabled porticoes;
So time and tune shield art there honestly.

With haunted hope, if lethal traitors sneer
Where rows of streamlined tungsten men abhor
Do roadway portals splash that engineer?
The term's wrong value told the final score.

I touch clasped hands to batter on the drum
Tied fast on those the celebrants go mum.

Apart from the fact that there are an OCTILLION (10^27)of these, the even more remarkable fact is that all of them are anagrams of one another.

The process for creating them is explained at Octosonnets.

Clever (federal crime)

This mailbox was spotted in Maryland.

Mars now thought to have LOTS of water

Excerpts from an article at Smithsonian:

Despite claims in the 1890s that Mars was filled with canals teeming with water*, research over the past several decades has suggested that in fact, Mars has only a tiny amount of water, mostly near its surface. Then, during the 1970s, as part of NASA’s Mariner space orbiter program, dry river beds and canyons on Mars were discovered—the first indications that surface water may have once existed there. The Viking program subsequently found enormous river valleys on the planet, and in 2003 it was announced that the Mars Odyssey spacecraft had actually detected minute quantities of liquid water on and just below the surface, which was later confirmed by the Phoenix lander.

Now, according to an article published [June 21] in the journal Geology, there is evidence that Mars is home to vast reservoirs of water in its interior as well. The finding has weighty implications for our understanding of the geology of Mars, for hopes that the planet may have at some point in the past been home to extraterrestrial life and for the long-term prospects of human colonization there.

Surprisingly, the evidence used to reach this conclusion comes from analysis of "the amount of water molecules locked inside crystals of the mineral apatite" in meteorites that originated from Mars.  Discussion at the link.

* Can something "teem" with water?  (And "amount of water molecules" is also awkward.  Better copyediting needed).

How to conserve a box of cereal

YouTube link. 

Staff at the Smithsonian describe the steps they followed in preparing a box of Wheaties featuring Jim Thorpe for conservation and display.

A companion article briefly discusses Jim Thorpe's career and the reasons his Olympic records are not officially recognized.

"Throw 'em back"

It's been many years since I fished in Minnesota, so on a recent visit to the North Shore and north central part of the state I was bemused to see this sign at Leech Lake (a huge lake (>100,000 acres) with lots of muskies; according to the DNR "Muskie anglers averaged 1 fish/31 angler-hours, during the 2011 fishing season.")

But note, if you catch a musky and it's less than four feet long, you have to release it.

Introducing new Fusion Tables API

Posted by Warren Shen, Fusion Tables team

We are very pleased to announce the public availability of the new Fusion Tables API. The new API includes all of the functionality of the existing SQL API, plus the ability to read and modify table and column metadata as well as the definitions of styles and templates for data visualization. This API is also integrated with the Google APIs console which lets developers manage all their Google APIs in one place and take advantage of built-in reporting and authentication features.

With this launch, we are also announcing a six month deprecation period for the existing SQL API. Since the new API includes all of the functionality of the existing SQL API, developers can easily migrate their applications using our migration guide.

For a detailed description of the features in the new API, please refer to the API documentation.

Wedding makeup

Fatme Kichukova has her make-up applied during her wedding ceremony in the village of Ribnovo, in the Rhodope Mountains on December 11, 2011. The remote mountain village of Ribnovo in southwest Bulgaria has kept its traditional winter marriage ceremony alive despite decades of Communist persecution, followed by poverty that forced many men to seek work abroad. The wedding ritual was resurrected with vigor among the Pomaks -- Slavs who converted to Islam under Ottoman rule. The highlight of the ceremony is the painting of the bride's face, where in a private rite open only to female in-laws, her face is covered in thick, chalky white paint and decorated with colorful sequins. Muslims currently make up 10 percent of Bulgaria's 7.4 million population. (Stoyan Nenov/Reuters).

 From a group of 37 photos ("Scenes from Bulgaria") at The Big Picture.

Some tick bites can lead to red meat allergy

This unexpected and intuitively unexpected correlation has been reported in the May 2011 issue of J. Allerg. Clin. Immunol.  Here are some excerpts from the abstract:

In 2009, we reported a novel form of delayed anaphylaxis to red meat, which is related to serum IgE antibodies to the oligosaccharide galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose (alpha-gal). Most of these patients had tolerated meat for many years previously. The implication is that some exposure in adult life had stimulated the production of these IgE antibodies.... Prospective studies on IgE antibodies in three subjects following tick bites showed an increase in IgE to alpha-gal of twenty-fold or greater...

The results presented here provide evidence that tick bites are a cause, or possibly the only cause, of IgE specific for alpha-gal in this area of the United States. Both the number of subjects becoming sensitized and the titer of IgE antibodies to alpha-gal are striking. Here we report the first example of a response to an ectoparasite giving rise to an important form of food allergy. 

And from the discussion:

This evidence includes following the response prospectively in three cases, a strong correlation with histories of tick bites, epidemiological evidence that these antibodies are not found in regions where tick bites are rare, and the correlation with IgE antibodies...

Our original observation was that the distribution of anaphylactic reactions to cetuximab was similar to the maximum prevalence of Rocky Mountain spotted fever. The major vectors of RMSF in this region are the ticks D. variabilis and A. americanum, and the geographic range of A. americanum has been expanding over the last 30 years, probably in parallel with the massive increase in the deer population...

Although many different patterns of tick bites have been reported, three forms stand out:

1. A few bites from adult ticks that persist for weeks or months, remaining pruritic. The most severe case of this kind reported having two tick bites removed surgically 6 months after the original contact.

2. Repeated bites often around the ankles in subjects who work outside or hunt regularly. In a few cases, the local reactions to the ticks have been so severe as to preclude further work outside.

 3. Multiple bites from larval ticks, generally 10 or more, but often hundreds, which are again severely pruritic, but generally do not last more than a few weeks...

Fascinating.  I would never have expected this.  For those interested, here is the distribution map of documented cases:


Via the discussion thread at Reddit, where some readers report their personal experiences with meat anaphylaxis and discuss methods of tick removal.

Lake Retba (Senegal)

Remember the photo of the potash mining ponds?  Here's a similar process occurring naturally in a lake in Senegal, where high levels of salt support the growth of a halophilic extremophile (Dunaliella salina) which produces a red pigment, turning the salty water pink.

The salt is harvested by local villagers.

Info from the Huffington Post, via Neatorama.

Why it's now o.k. to boldly split infinitives

We are no longer speaking Old English or Latin, with their single-word infinitives... Ænglisc-speakers could not have said "to boldly go", since the infinitive was a single word, "gān". They'd have had to say "gān bealde", or something like that. Similarly, Latin speakers wouldn't have had the option: they'd have had to say "ire audacter". (Forgive the probably awful Latin and Old English there.) But we're not speaking Latin or Ænglisc, so it's just silly to limit ourselves to the grammatical options available to them...

There are times when splitting is not just permissible but obligatory... If the quantity you are measuring more than doubles, where do you put your infinitive? ... [instead of] "to more than double", what would you suggest? "We expect it more than to double" or "We expect it to double more than"? The first is weird; the second is even weirder.

From an op-ed piece at The Telegraph.

Wolf-dog hybrids

A photoessay at English Russia makes note of the longstanding project at Perm to interbreed wolves and domestic dogs.

Attempts to cross dogs and wolves have been made since the time of the Ancient Rome. And only the project of the Perm wolf-dogs can be called successful... It started 13 years ago when Vyacheslav at his own risk and for his own money bought a two-years-old wolf Naida from the man who had been going to stuff her... The professor had been looking for a partner for Naida for 4 years. Eventually it became a male German shepherd... The hybrids were stronger, of greater endurance, they rarely fell ill and had an incredible scent. For example they can find a trace three days old while for ordinary dogs 6-8 hours is a limit.  They live 25-30 years, the wolf-dogs are easily trainable [the Wikipedia entry on wolves as working animals disputes the latter assertion]...Many of them already serve in the police, army: in Chechnya, Gelendzhik, Samara, Ural cities…

Woman buried with cow

As reported by the BBC:

Archaeologists excavating an Anglo-Saxon cemetery in Cambridgeshire say the discovery of a woman buried with a cow is a "genuinely bizarre" find...

At first it was thought the animal skeleton was a horse. Student Jake Nuttall said: "Male warriors might be buried with horses, but a woman and a cow is new to us." Co-director of the excavation, Dr Duncan Sayer, from the University of Central Lancashire, said: "Animal burials are extremely rare, anyway.

"There are only 31 horse burials in Britain and they are all with men. This is the first animal to be discovered with a woman from this period - the late 5th Century - and it's really interesting that it's a cow, a symbol of economic and domestic wealth and power...

"The cow burial is unique in Europe which makes this an incredibly exciting and important find.

Via Arbroath.

Become a Google Power Searcher

Posted by Terry Ednacot, Education Program Manager

Cross-posted with the Official Google Blog

You may already be familiar with some shortcuts for Google Search, like using the search box as a calculator or finding local movie showtimes by typing [movies] and your zip code. But there are many more tips, tricks and tactics you can use to find exactly what you’re looking for, when you most need it.

Today, we’ve opened registration for Power Searching with Google, a free, online, community-based course showcasing these techniques and how you can use them to solve everyday problems. Our course is aimed at empowering you to find what you need faster, no matter how you currently use search. For example, did you know that you can search for and read pages written in languages you’ve never even studied? Identify the location of a picture your friend took during his vacation a few months ago? How about finally identifying that green-covered book about gardening that you’ve been trying to track down for years? You can learn all this and more over six 50-minute classes.

Lessons will be released daily starting on July 10, 2012, and you can take them according to your own schedule during a two-week window, alongside a worldwide community. The lessons include interactive activities to practice new skills, and many opportunities to connect with others using Google tools such as Google Groups, Moderator and Google+, including Hangouts on Air, where world-renowned search experts will answer your questions on how search works. Googlers will also be on hand during the course period to help and answer your questions in case you get stuck.

Power Searching with Google blends the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) learning format pioneered by Stanford and MIT with our social and communication tools to create what we hope is a true community learning experience.

Visit the course homepage to learn more. By the end of this course, you'll know several new techniques that will make you a Google Power Searcher and help you find out information about whatever you can imagine—from how to prepare for a new family pet to where moss grows on Stonehenge or how to grow katniss in your garden. Sign up now!

"Here he is!"

Image cropped from source, via Mark's Scrapbook of Oddities and Treasures.

Venta waterfall (Kuldiga, Latvia)

The widest rapid (817 feet/249 meters) and waterfall in Europe, located on the Venta River in Kuldiga, Latvia.  I also found this video (narrated in Latvian), which documents some of the history of salmon fishing at the site:

YouTube link.

With a hat tip to Aleksejs, one of the Latvian readers of this blog.

"Margin Call" (2011)

I was reminded of this Nonsequitur comic strip last night when I watched the excellent movie Margin Call -

The film received positive reviews from critics, garnering an 88% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The New Yorker described the film as "easily the best Wall Street movie ever made." Although the film does not depict any real Wall Street firm, or similar corporate action during the 2008 financial crisis, Goldman Sachs similarly moved early to hedge and reduce its position in mortgage-backed securities, at the urging of two employees. Other firms like Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns found themselves similarly and catastrophically over-leveraged in mortgage-backed securities. They scrambled, ultimately unsuccessfully, to manage the financial and public panic that ensued when their problems became apparent and the global financial markets plunged as a result. The character John Tuld (Irons) is loosely based upon Dick Fuld, the former CEO of Lehman Brothers.

- which probably wasn't noticed much by the general public because it doesn't have any explosions or special effects.  It does have consistently excellent acting (Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Stanley Tucci et al), and was nominated for an Academy Award for best original screenplay.

How ammonites got their name

The name ammonite, from which the scientific term is derived, was inspired by the spiral shape of their fossilized shells, which somewhat resemble tightly coiled rams' horns. Pliny the Elder... called fossils of these animals ammonis cornua ("horns of Ammon") because the Egyptian god Ammon (Amun) was typically depicted wearing ram's horns.

Photo credit R. Weller/Cochise College.

Gasoline prices could drop to $2.50/gallon

One man's opinion, as expressed by an energy analyst speaking on Bloomberg TV.

The cause is two-fold, he said: the price of oil has fallen sharply recently due to over-production in Saudi Arabia and falling demand due to Europe’s economic slowdown is also a factor, said Verleger.

“Saudia Arabia really runs the oil market ... and the Saudis right now have several reasons for essentially overproducing, or producing more than the market needs, and pushing prices down,” said Verleger.

I filled up yesterday at $3.36, down about 15% from $3.90 back in March.  If it continues, it will boost the economy by freeing up money for discretionary spending.  And it would be good news for someone's re-election bid...

Quvenzhané, star of "Beasts of the Southern Wild"

Excerpts from a review in Roger Ebert's Journal at the Chicago Sun-Times:

If there is one 2012 movie that seems to have a lock on a best picture nomination, it is "Beasts of the Southern Wild." And if there is a single reason its early viewers have loved it so much, it is an 8-year-old girl named Quvenzhané Wallis, who was six when she filmed it. Here is a case of a great role finding the perfect actress to play it.

"My computer has trouble pronouncing names," I told Quvenzhané not long ago in my living room.

"That's okay," she said. We worked together on a phonetic spelling: kwa van je nay. A beautiful name for this composed young woman, who deserves her own Oscar nomination, and whose nickname is Nazie.

The film is the feature debut of Benh Zeitlin, whose first short subject was made in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It's set in The Bathtub, an isolated island area offshore from New Orleans, where the poorest of the poor scramble to survive. Shanties perch on stilts in the delta marshlands. A boat is made from the bed of a pickup truck. The world of prosperity could be on a distant planet. We focus on a girl named Hushpuppy, whose mother has disappeared, whose father is loving but sometimes harsh, and whose determination is indomitable. The feeling is post-apocalyptic, and there are rumors of another storm on the way, one that will flood the islands and their people.

"Beasts" opens on July 6, but is already famous in film circles. At Sundance 2012, it won the Grand Jury Prize. At Cannes, it won the Camera d'Or as best first film. At both, the small girl from Louisiana won hearts with her spunky, straightforward manner in the face of calamity.

Ebert's video interview with the young lady is at his column (8 minutes), where I also found the trailer for the movie -

YouTube link. 

- and this comment: "Anybody calls for Quvenzhané, I know they're calling me, cause that's one of a kind."

Things to release at a wedding

From Coolness Graphed.

Carnage in Syria

Mass media news outlets understandably filter out or suppress the worst aspects of war.  Most well-informed people are aware of the ongoing strife in Syria, but it's hard to appreciate the degree of atrocities without graphic images.

I found some photos today.  Most of you will probably be best advised not to view them.

Iconic Photos presents an image of the front page of the May 30 issue of The Times, which displayed one picture of a dead child with descriptive text; I have sequestered the text beneath the fold because it is very graphic:
Here's the text:

One photograph shows a cherubic baby girl, no older than 2, with a tiny gold ear-stud. She is wrapped in a white shroud. Half her skull has been hacked or blown away. A saucer of bone juts from a bloody gash in what remains of her head.

Another shows what appears to be a boy of perhaps 6 or 7. The blanket in which he is wrapped has fallen away to expose a bare white shoulder. He looks as if he is sleeping, but the back of his head has been lopped off like the top of a boiled egg. His brain lies on the blanket behind him.

A third shows a pretty young girl staring upwards, her mouth slightly open as if smiling. Above her right eye there is a large, bloody bullet hole surrounded by a mess of flesh and bone.

The pictures go on, some mercifully out of focus, most far too shocking to print in The Times though our failure to do so spares the Assad regime.

There is a baby wearing nothing but a nappy, seemingly untouched except that it lacks an arm. Another young girl wearing a blood-soaked T-shirt with the word “Baby” or “Dolly” written on it has had her jaw shot away. A man carries the body of a child with only half a head remaining.

Sixteen of the photos are posted at A Separate State of Mind as The Little Children Terrorists of Syria, and another dozen at More Pictures from the Syrian Houla Massacre.
"The photos are from the Damascus-based Shaam News Network, a citizen reporting collective."

Warning.  The last two links have gore.  Extreme gore.  Extreme pediatric gore.

Potash mining

Here it is (or at least a similar one) on Google Earth Hacks.

Photo credit Vision Aerie, via Uniformitarianism and A London Salmagundi.

In case of emergency...

Created at The Keep Calm-O-Matic (where you can make one of your own).

With a tip of the hat to Librarianista.

"Vampire pumpkins and watermelons"

From Wikipedia:

Vampire pumpkins and watermelons are a folk legend from the Balkans, in southeastern Europe, described by ethnologist Tatomir Vukanović. The story is associated with the Roma people of the region, from whom much of traditional vampire folklore, among other unusual legends, originated.

The belief in vampire fruit is similar to the belief that any inanimate object left outside during the night of a full moon will become a vampire. According to tradition, watermelons or any kind of pumpkin kept more than ten days or after Christmas will become a vampire, rolling around on the ground and growling to pester the living. People have little fear of the vampire pumpkins and melons because of the creatures' lack of teeth. One of the main indications that a pumpkin or melon is about to undergo a vampiric transformation (or has just completed one) is said to be the appearance of a drop of blood on its skin.

The validity (or lack of same) of this legend is discussed at this Wikipedia talk archive page.

Photo credit ("I bought the melon at the Raleigh, North Carolina farmers' market and set it on the counter in an air-conditioned kitchen for four days, achieving the results photographed here. Upon observing the phenomenon, I wouldn't doubt that less scientific people supposed the watermelon had some relation to vampires.)

Via Biomedical Ephemera, or: A Frog for your Boils.

An unexpected danger of driving in a flooded area

Probably everyone is familiar with the risk of floodwaters lifting or pushing a vehicle when the vehicle enters deep water, but a different danger (and one new to me) was made evident during this past week's floods in Duluth.

As the city received a summer's worth of rain - nine inches - in one storm, the water cascaded down hillsides and roads, running beneath the pavement to undermine the support for the asphalt.  So even where there's not an visible washout or pothole, driving can be hazardous.

You learn something every day.

The flooding, btw, also wiped out a year or two's worth of steelhead trout from the area's rivers and streams because of habitat destruction and heavy sediment load in the water.

Native American genes found in Icelanders

This is significant because it would indicate not just transatlantic contact with North America, but migration or mating in the preColumbian era.

Although most mtDNA lineages observed in contemporary Icelanders can be traced to neighboring populations in the British Isles and Scandinavia, one may have a more distant origin. This lineage belongs to haplogroup C1, one of a handful that was involved in the settlement of the Americas around 14,000 years ago. Contrary to an initial assumption that this lineage was a recent arrival, preliminary genealogical analyses revealed that the C1 lineage was present in the Icelandic mtDNA pool at least 300 years ago. This raised the intriguing possibility that the Icelandic C1 lineage could be traced to Viking voyages to the Americas that commenced in the 10th century...

If the Greenland and ancient European hypotheses are rejected, what we have is a woman who entered the Icelandic society from an extinct lineage of Native Americans, probably from the northeast (or perhaps her Greenland Norse mother was of this line). What the Norse would have termed Markland. It is tempting to point to the Norse settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland. Perhaps the Europeans had enslaved a native woman, and taken her back to their homeland when they decamped? But more likely to me is the probability that the Norse brought back more than lumber from Markland, since their voyages spanned centuries.

Finally, does this explain Björk? I doubt it...

Original publication in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology in 2010, via Discover Magazine.

Giving new meaning to the word "spearheaded"

As reported by the BBC:

Medics at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami said the 3ft (90cm) projectile entered his brain over his right eye and went out the back of his head... He was shot with the projectile as he swam in a lake near his Miami area home on 8 June when his friend set off the trigger of a spear gun he was loading.

Fortunately he was a teenager, and survived with little damage.

Heaven is hotter than hell

According to the Bible, as calculated in the August 1972 issue of Applied Optics:

The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed from available data. Our authority is the Bible: Isaiah 30:26 reads, Moreover the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days. Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much radiation as the Earth does from the Sun and in addition seven times seven (forty-nine) times as much as the Earth does from the Sun, or fifty times in all. The light we receive from the Moon is a ten-thousandth of the light we receive from the Sun, so we can ignore that.

With these data we can compute the temperature of Heaven: The radiation falling on Heaven will heat it to the point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation. In other words, Heaven loses fifty times as much heat as the Earth by radiation. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann fourth-power law for radiation

where E is the absolute temperature of the Earth: 300K. This gives H as 798K absolute (525°C).

The exact temperature of Hell cannot be computed but it must be less than 444.6°C, the temperature at which brimstone or sulfur changes from a liquid to a gas. Revelations 21:8: But the fearful and unbelieving … shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone. A lake of molten brimstone means that its temperature must be below the boiling point, which is 444.6°C. (Above that point it would be a vapor, not a lake.)

It's not clear to me whether Isaiah chapter 30 is describing Heaven or "Zion at Jerusalem" - fulltext of the chapter here.

Found in the Futility Closet.

Medici hairpin recovered from public latrine

As reported by The History Blog:

Conservators have discovered a four-inch gold hairpin that once belonged to Catherine de Medici, wife of King Henry II and Queen of France from 1547 until his death in 1559, in a communal latrine at Fontainebleau Palace. Archaeologists were excavating the Henry IV courtyard at the royal palace outside of Paris in preparation for an upcoming restoration project when they found the precious object.

The pin is identifiable as Catherine’s because it is decorated with a pair of interlocking C’s that look exactly like the Chanel logo but are actually her monogram from when she was Dauphine of France, i.e., married to the heir presumptive, between 1536 and 1547. When Fontainebleau Palace conservator Vincent Droguet cleaned the encrusted grime off the jewel, he noticed the remnants of a white and green finish in the monogram area. White and green were Catherine’s colors...

How it got there is and will doubtless remain a mystery. She had a royal commode of her own and it’s highly unlikely she would have used a communal latrine even under the direst of excretory pressure. Droguet surmises that the pin was either stolen by or given away to someone who then lost it or dropped it in the toilet.

How important is your work?

It's been over a month since I've visited sites I normally see every week, so today I found two Dilberts - the one above on the psychodynamics of the office, and the one below commenting on American foreign policy...

More here.

Catch up with me this summer

Taking Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia on the road, catch up with me if you can.

July 6th - Silver Legacy - "End of Time" conference for MENSA (this is a closed conference unless you are a member of MENSA)  Skepticism in Action - I will be on a panel with Brad Lutts (Reno Skeptics), Ben Radford and Mark Edward.

That Friday night July 6th. Join the Reno Skeptics who are hosting a Skeptics in the Pub meetup.  Location to be determined but here is the FB group announcing it.

Saturday, July 7th - Reason4Reason will be featuring Mark Edward discussing his upcoming book Psychic Blues.  I will be there as well, so please if you are in the area of San Francisco that night come hang out with us.  

July 12 -16th find me wandering the venue with camera in hand at South Point (Las Vegas) during the TAM conference.  I will be gathering lots of data for Wikipedia.

August 9-12 find me in Eugene, OR for the Skeptic's Toolbox hosted at the University of Oregon.  I will be launching the re-writes of several faculty at the beginning of August.

August 30-Sept 4th - Dragon*Con in Atlanta, Georgia.  I'm told I might be able to arm-wrestle for a spot on a panel or two. 

September (Date to be determined) I will have my own lecture on Wikipedia for the Reason4Reason group in San Francisco.  Stay tuned for that.

Clouded Sulphur (Colias philodice)

Two years ago and again early this year I posted photos of color polymorphism (an alba variant) in this butterfly.  Now I can finally present the full life cycle.

I found the eggs on common vetch growing in our back garden and brought them inside to keep in a small plastic container on my desk.  At first I wasn't sure what species they were, and even when the small green caterpillars hatched I couldn't quite tell.  As they approached full size (top photo), I was pretty sure it was the common Clouded Sulphur.  Most people are familiar with this butterfly, though perhaps not by name, because it is common and widespread (because it's able to utilize a variety of common legumes as hosts for the larvae).

Yesterday I posted images of the caterpillar forming a "J" (left) and then transforming into a chrysalis (right):

One particularly nice feature of raising butterflies at home is being able to watch the buttefly develop inside the chrysalis.  Here's the Monarch inside its now-transparent chrysalis:

It's truly beautiful, and watching it pop out and then inflate those wings is just magical.

So - here's the Clouded Sulphur inside its chrysalis several days before it hatched:

The head is at the top, with the wings folded over the thorax - exhibiting a beautiful pastel palette of colors.

And here (s)he is on the day of eclosion, holding onto a twig while the wings dry and become stiff enough for flight (double click for wallpaper size).  How can you not love those big green eyes?

Most butterflies prefer to keep their wings folded vertically when they are at rest; my guess is that this allows them to lift off more quickly if startled or attacked.  I couldn't get a photo of the dorsum of these wings, but you can see examples here.

Which countries have no mountains?

The World Geography has assembled a list of the nine largest (by area) countries that do not have a mountain.  That sent me scrambling to find a definition of a mountain:

There is no universally accepted definition of a mountain. Elevation, volume, relief, steepness, spacing and continuity have been used as criteria for defining a mountain. In the Oxford English Dictionary a mountain is defined as "a natural elevation of the earth surface rising more or less abruptly from the surrounding level and attaining an altitude which, relatively to the adjacent elevation, is impressive or notable."

So, which are the largest countries without a "mountain?"  Ponder your answer before peeking below the fold.  The one I guessed came out #5 on their list.

9.  The Gambia
8.  Kuwait
7.  Moldova
6.  Guinea-Bissau
5.  Denmark
4.  Estonia
3.  Latvia
2.  Lithuania
1.  Belarus

At the source, comments suggest that Uruguay and the Netherlands were overlooked.

Known exoplanets

From xkcd, a graphic of the 786 known planets.  The eight in our solar system are just above the central text; the others are drawn to scale, sometimes with estimated sizes based on mass.

Via Neatorama.

Is it o.k. to put a gun to a child's head?

From a story reported by Reason (via BoingBoing):

At 7 a.m. on January 20, 2007, DEA agents battered down the door to Thomas and Rosalie Avina’s mobile home in Seeley, California, in search of suspected drug trafficker Louis Alvarez. Thomas Avina met the agents in his living room and told them they were making a mistake. Shouting “Don’t you fucking move,” the agents forced Thomas Avina to the floor at gunpoint, and handcuffed him and his wife, who had been lying on a couch in the living room. As the officers made their way to the back of the house, where the Avina’s 11-year-old and 14-year-old daughters were sleeping, Rosalie Avina screamed, “Don’t hurt my babies. Don’t hurt my babies.”

The agents entered the 14-year-old girl’s room first, shouting “Get down on the fucking ground.” The girl, who was lying on her bed, rolled onto the floor, where the agents handcuffed her. Next they went to the 11-year-old’s room. The girl was sleeping. Agents woke her up by shouting “Get down on the fucking ground.” The girl’s eyes shot open, but she was, according to her own testimony, “frozen in fear.” So the agents dragged her onto the floor. While one agent handcuffed her, another held a gun to her head.

The Ninth Circuit Court has ruled that putting a loaded gun to an 11-year-old girl's head was not proper:

While the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals defended the agents' rough treatment of Thomas and Rosalie, it also declared that yanking the Avina children off their beds and putting guns to their heads did, in fact, constitute the “intentional infliction of emotional distress.”

This occurred during the Bush administration, and has been defended by the Obama administration.

And, disproving the old adage that "if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear," this closing note:

After two hours, the agents realized they had the wrong house—the product of a sloppy license plate transcription—and left.

Intrauterine laser resection of a teratoma

The ultrasound image shows the nasopharyngeal teratoma as a "bubble" protruding in front of the lip of the fetus.

The tumor was resected at the base using a 600 micrometer contact YAG laser fiber on continuous mode with 10 W of energy. A minimal amount of bleeding from the base of the tumor was controlled with a noncontact YAG laser fiber. The tumor fell inside the amniotic cavity, where it was left. The procedure lasted 68 minutes. There were no maternal or fetal complications.

Further details (fulltext) at the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, via the BBC.

I'm reinstituting captchas for comments

Six weeks ago I modified the settings of TYWKIWDBI to eliminate the annoying "word verification" step for comment submission.  Since then I have been deluged with spam - maybe 15/day just for "payday loans" alone.

I wish I could have Elisha unleash a she-bear on the spammers, but lacking that option, I've put captchas back on the comments.  Sorry, but cleaning the comments was wasting too much of my time.

"Cat's cradle"

At our house, the term "cat" is used both for the four representatives of felis domesticus and as a verbal shorthand for "caterpillars," so I've misapplied the old phrase "cat's cradle" to title this post about the chrysalis of a Clouded Sulfur butterfly (Colias philodice).

One of the things that fascinate me regarding butterflies is the process of metamorphosis.  The transformation takes days, and during this time the caterpillar has to secure itself somewhere.  Some, like the Monarch, glue themselves to a surface and hang vertically:

- while others, like the Black Swallowtail shown here -

- and the Clouded Sulfur "proceed to anchor themselves with a silk attachement at the base and a remarkable silk strand enclosing the upper thoracic region, so that the pupa is suspended like a mountain climber hanging from a cliffside in a sleeping bag."

I have never been lucky enough to see this while it was happening, so I don't know how it manages to spin the silk around its body like that.

I also think it's very cool that the completed chrysalis (second photo from the top) has the shape and color of a leaf of the vetch on which it was created, helping to camouflage it during the time the larva is so utterly defenseless.

More about the sulfur tomorrow or this weekend.