Battle of Charleston Harbor, Panoramic View

English: First Battle of Charleston Harbor. "Panoramic View of Charleston Harbor. -- Advance of Ironclads to the Attack, April 7th, 1863" Line engraving published in "The Soldier in our Civil War", Volume II, page 172, with a key to individual ships and land features shown. U.S. Navy ships present are (from left to center): Keokuk, Nahant, Nantucket, Catskill, New Ironsides, Patapsco, Montauk, Passaic and Weehawken. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Photo #: NH 59269. Online Image: 107KB; 900 x 350 pixels. Nederlands: Eerste slag bij Charleston Harbor

link: File:First Charleston Harbor.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

Illustration by Viera Bombová (1932 - 2005)

Viera Bombová (1932 - 2005) was a Slovak illustrator. Along with Albín Brunovský, she studied graphic design and illustration with Vincent Hloznik in the 50s. She won awards at the "Biennial of Illustrations Bratislava" in 1967 and 1969.

link: A Journey Round My Skull: Forgotten Illustrator - Viera Bombova

5th Ave. and 23rd St., New York

link: File:Looking up 5th Avenue from 23rd Street, from Robert N. Dennis collection of stereoscopic views 2.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

# Original source: Robert N. Dennis collection of stereoscopic views. / United States. / States / New York / New York City / Stereoscopic views of parades, holidays and events in New York City (Approx. 72,000 stereoscopic views : 10 x 18 cm. or smaller.) digital record # Location: Stephen A. Schwarzman Building / Photography Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs # Catalog Call Number: MFY Dennis Coll 91-F182 # Record ID: 624219 # Digital ID: G91F182_044F

Bomb in Kirkuk as US Departs

Up to 40 people have been killed in a bomb blast in the northern city of Kirkuk, just hours after US troops withdrew from Iraq's towns and cities.

A further 100 were wounded as the car bomb was detonated in a crowded market in the central Shurga district of the city on Tuesday.

Dr Sabah Mohammed al-Dawoudi, a local doctor, said: "All of the killed and wounded are civilians, among them women, children and men.

"The explosion happened at the peak time for shopping."

The attack came hours after Iraqi forces formally assumed responsibility for the capital, Baghdad, and other cities as the midnight deadline for the US to hand over control passed on Tuesday, six years after US-led coalition forces invaded Iraq.

link: Al Jazeera English - Middle East - Kirkuk bombed amid US pullout

The Tragic Saga of the Packing Noodle

While Burchard was experimenting with refrigerator insulation, he came up with a novel way of molding low-density foam. The foam wasn't a very good insulator (in other words, not useful to him at the time), but he was impressed by how light and strong it was. He realized that he could use it to improve upon the packing peanut. Burchard shaped the new material into rough- textured lightning bolts of foam that locked together to stay put under the weight of heavy, priceless objects. He christened his creation Expans O Fill and in 1998 sent it to Michigan State University's School of Packaging for independent testing. It trounced all seven competitive products, transmitting up to 90 percent less shock and cushioning four times better than the packing peanut. Five years later, 3M bought the design, renamed it the Packing Noodle, and rolled it out in 2004.

Even though the Noodle was a vast improvement over the peanut, "they didn't sell well," says Carter Swift, a brand manager at 3M. "They were just too different." The Noodles came fitted together in compact, shrink-wrapped blocks. Retailers loved them because they took up such little shelf space. But consumers didn't understand that the blocks broke apart into hundreds of Noodles. In June, Burchard's brilliant idea was discontinued, and once again we're left with only God (and a few lesser earthly products) to protect our precious cargo.

link: Packing It In: Why the Foam Noodle Couldn't Cut It in the Protection Racket

A Critique of Impure Tweeting: Alice Hoffman and the Critics

Fortunately, as Alice Hoffman's weekend meltdown suggests, the form is still thriving -- in 140-character nuggets. Smarting from a so-so review of "The Story Sisters" in the Boston Globe, the prolific novelist tweeted her fury to the world. She came out swinging, calling reviewer Roberta Silman "a moron," quickly moving on to "idiot," then expanding her repertoire to dis the newspaper and the city of Boston itself. But the real jaw-dropper in Hoffman's two dozen plus tweets on the subject was her suggestion that "If you want to tell Roberta Silman off, her phone is [Silman's phone number and email address]. Tell her what u think of snarky critics."

As of late Monday morning, Hoffman's Twitter account -- and with it, her petulant tweets -- have disappeared. Did she have a pang of remorse about her actions, or a fear of a lawsuit? She issued a statement through her publisher that read, "I feel this whole situation has been completely blown out of proportion. Of course, I was dismayed by Roberta Silman's review which gave away the plot of the novel, and in the heat of the moment I responded strongly and I wish I hadn't. I'm sorry if I offended anyone. Reviewers are entitled to their opinions and that's the name of the game in publishing. I hope my readers understand that I didn't mean to hurt anyone and I'm truly sorry if I did." (Who better than Diana Joseph, author of the recent memoir "I'm Sorry You Feel That Way," to point out that Hoffman's "I hope my readers understand that I didn't mean to hurt anyone and I'm truly sorry if I did" is a pretty passive-aggressive statement? Why is she apologizing to her readers but not to Silman? "Hoffman is still too perturbed about the review, still kicking and screaming that it 'gave away the plot,'" said Joseph on Monday. "Translation: It's Silman's fault. She made me do it.")

link: Hey, authors, don't tweet in anger! | Salon Books

Outsourcing the Horse Meat Trade

Not many people realize slaughtering horses for meat has been big business in the U.S. for generations. Yet in recent decades, public sentiment, matched by state and local laws, has risen against the practice, and in 2007 the last three U.S. horse slaughterhouses were shuttered. Since 2005, Congress has also withheld U.S. Department of Agriculture funding for horse-meat inspections to prevent new abattoirs from opening in states where horse slaughter is still legal. No federal law, though, forbids U.S. horses from being sent to slaughterhouses across the border. Which is exactly what has been happening in the two years since horse slaughter stopped here. The number killed in Canada and Mexico doubled to 49,000 in 2007 and rose to more than 72,000 last year, according to trade data.

link: Horses to the slaughter | Salon

Obama Wines and Dines LGBT Constituents

"I know that many in this room don't believe that progress has come fast enough, and I understand that," [Obama] said. "It's not for me to tell you to be patient, any more than it was for others to counsel patience to African-Americans who were petitioning for equal rights a half century ago."

That may have helped buy him some, well, patience. "He acknowledged the sense of frustration and disappointment and disillusionment that many in our community have been expressing -- very justifiably so," said Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, who attended the event with her 13-year-old son. By making clear he knew he had disappointed many supporters, Obama won a chance to persuade them that he'd follow through with action. The administration has also been more open to hearing from gay and lesbian activists in recent weeks, Kendell said. "He acknowledged without condescension, without defensiveness, the fact that there was a sense that we had expected and been hoping for more ... I do believe, and feel comforted, that part of his value system includes full equality for LGBT Americans."

link: Obama woos LGBT leaders | Salon News

Dept. of Wheels Within Wheels: Govt. Buys Online Tools To Monitor Online Spending

The Obama administration introduced online tools on Tuesday that will track and analyze the more than $70 billion a year that the federal government spends on information technology.

The new Web tools, called IT Dashboard, are part of a Web site set up to monitor government spending, USASpending.gov. Administration officials said the technology-tracking dashboard was a step toward greater openness and accountability in government, and a model for the kinds of tools it would increasingly make available to the public for other kinds of spending, like following the flow of dollars in the economic recovery package.

link: New Tool Will Track Federal Tech Spending - NYTimes.com

O Arizona: Myopic State Goverment Hamstrung Over Budget

With only hours left to avert a possible state shutdown, Republican Gov. Jan Brewer visited the state House Tuesday, seeking support from Democratic lawmakers for a sales tax increase to help close the state's multibillion dollar budget shortfall.

Two Democratic representatives later said that they told the governor they couldn't oblige without getting something in return. The lawmakers said they met with Brewer and state House Speaker Kirk Adams.

Democratic state Rep. Jack Brown of St. Johns said he asked Brewer to halve the one-cent sales tax increase and to dump other tax measures opposed by Democrats, but "she wouldn't bend."

link: Brewer To Dems: Back Sales Tax - Money News Story - KPHO Phoenix

Reliquary

File:Reliquary Thomas Becket MNMA Cl23296.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

Stereopticon View: Old Fort Holmes

File:Old Fort Holmes, from Robert N. Dennis collection of stereoscopic views.png - Wikimedia Commons

Iran's Poet Laureate Simin Behbahani

4:11 pm: Iran’s poet laureate speaks out – Iran’s national poet Simin Behbahani went on NPR and recited two poems inspired by the protests in Iran. Listen to them here or watch on Youtube.

Stop Throwing My Country To The Wind

Simin Behbahani

Translated by Kaveh Safa and Farzaneh Milani

June 2009

If the flames of anger rise any higher in this land Your name on your tombstone will be covered with dirt.

You have become a babbling loudmouth. Your insolent ranting, something to joke about.

The lies you have found, you have woven together. The rope you have crafted, you will find around your neck.

Pride has swollen your head, your faith has grown blind. The elephant that falls will not rise.

Stop this extravagance, this reckless throwing of my country to the wind. The grim-faced rising cloud, will grovel at the swamp’s feet.

Stop this screaming, mayhem, and blood shed. Stop doing what makes God’s creatures mourn with tears.

My curses will not be upon you, as in their fulfillment. My enemies’ afflictions also cause me pain.

You may wish to have me burned, or decide to stone me. But in your hand match or stone will lose their power to harm me.

link: niacINsight

Inhofe Puts Out Contract on Climate Legislation

James Inhofe is quoted in the Enid Oklahoma News & Eagle from statements made yesterday (Monday) at an Enid, Oklahoma Rotary Club meeting. His appraisal of the chances of a climate bill passing the US Senate this week:

"It's dead on arrival in the Senate. It will not happen," Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe told Enid Rotarians during their noon meeting Monday. "I can absolutely guarantee you it's not going to happen in the Senate."

link: Quote Of The Day: "I can absolutely guarantee you it's not going to happen in the Senate." : TreeHugger

Detail from a Pair of Doors in India

File:Detail from pair of doors, northern India, 19th century.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

Dinosaur Yields Skin Secrets, But Not for the Fashion Minded

A remarkably well-preserved fossil of a dinosaur has been analysed by scientists writing in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

They describe how the fossil's soft tissues were spared from decay by fine sediments that formed a mineral cast.

Tests have shown that the fossil still holds cell-like structures - but their constituent proteins have decayed.

The team says the cellular structure of the dinosaur's skin was similar to that of dinosaurs' modern-day descendants.

link: BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Dinosaur mummy yields its secrets

Academic Publishing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Non-Policy

Ed Kohler points us to a long, but fascinating blog post, by Stuart Shieber, a CS professor at Harvard, discussing the somewhat ridiculous copyright situation that many academics deal with in trying to promote their own works. I've heard similar stories from other professors I know, but this one is worth reading. Shieber points out the importance of academics getting their research published in journals, but how annoying it is that most journals require those academics to give up all sorts of rights -- including the right to distribute their own research on their websites. However, he notes that most published academics simply ignore this rule, and you end up with a "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Even though they're legally prevented from putting up a PDF of their work on their website, they do so anyway, and journals just look the other way.

link: The Ridiculous Copyright Situation Faced By Academics Who Want To Promote Their Own Research | Techdirt

Little Walky Man Says "Walk" In 250 Languages: Traffic Lights from Around the World

This one is from Armenia.

Traffic lights - Wikimedia Commons

One of a Kind: Thank God!

File:Funnel-dog.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

Smog and Premature Births: One More Reason to Clean it Up

Add it to Asthma, High Blood Pressure, and Cardiovascular Diseases Did we need one more reason to to fight against smog? I don't think so, but we got one anyway thanks to a study to be published in Environmental Health Perspectives and covered by Discovery News. A team from the University of California, Irvine, has shown that pregnant women living within 1.9 miles (3 kilometers) of a major roadway in Los Angeles are 128% more at risk of giving birth prematurely. "Moms-to-be were also between 33 and 42 percent more likely to develop preeclampsia, an affliction characterized by high blood pressure that often forces doctors to induce premature birth in order to save mothers' lives."

link: Smog is Increasing Risks of Premature Births by 128% : TreeHugger

Make Your Home A Cougar- and Gator-Free Fortress

Use wildlife smarts and DIY know-how to make your yard a predator-free zone. Animal attacks are rare, but they do happen. Here's how to handle an encounter with a mountain lion, alligator or black bear and survive–in the backcountry or backyard. Be sure to check out PM's story about the rise of endangered predators.

link: Survive Bear Attacks - Protect Your Home From Wild Animals - Popular Mechanics

Child Mapping: Michael Chabon on Childhood

Matt Groening once did a great Life in Hell strip that took the form of a map of Bongo's neighborhood. At one end of a street that wound among yards and houses stood Bongo, the little one-eared rabbit boy. At the other stood his mother, about to blow her stack—Bongo was late for dinner again. Between mother and son lay the hazards —labeled angry dogs, roving gang of hooligans, girl with a crush on bongo—of any journey through the Wilderness: deadly animals, antagonistic humans, lures and snares. It captured perfectly the mental maps of their worlds that children endlessly revise and refine. Childhood is a branch of cartography.

link: Manhood for Amateurs: The Wilderness of Childhood - The New York Review of Books

Extreme Layoff Strategies: 1. Kill Boss 2. Revise Resume

Spanish police have arrested a man whom they suspect hired a contract killer to murder his boss in a desperate bid to avoid being laid off, newspaper El Pais reported on Tuesday.

The head of audiovisual services at the Barcelona International Convention Center contracted a Colombian man who shot and killed the director of the convention center on Feb 9, according to police.

The director had planned to lay off the arrested man as part of a restructuring project, police said.

link: Man had boss killed to save job? | Oddly Enough | Reuters

Book Review: "Censoring an Iranian Love Story"

In what now reads like an eerie echo of the killing of Neda Agha-Soltan, a young Iranian woman cut down by a bullet during this month’s election protests and captured on video, the Iranian author of this new novel foresees the possible death of his heroine in the streets of Tehran: “The girl does not know that in precisely seven minutes and seven seconds, at the height of the clash between the students, the police, and the members of the Party of God, in the chaos of attacks and escapes, she will be knocked into with great force, she will fall back, her head will hit against a cement edge, and her sad Oriental eyes will forever close.”

Her fellow students, “aware that they are about to be attacked, break into a heartrending anthem: My fellow schoolmate, you are with me and beside me, ... you are my tear and my sigh, ... the scars of the lashes of tyranny rest on our bodies.”

“Censoring an Iranian Love Story” by Shahriar Mandanipour — an Iranian writer who is currently a visiting scholar at Harvard — is, at once, a novel about two young Iranians trying to conduct a covert romance in Tehran; a postmodern account of the efforts of their creator — or his fictional alter ego — to grapple with the harsh censorship rules of his homeland; and an Escher-like meditation on the interplay of life and art, reality and fiction.

link: Books of The Times - In Shahriar Mandanipour’s ‘Censoring an Iranian Love Story,’ Romance Requires Courage - Review - NYTimes.com

The Pros Provide Advice for Citizen Journalists

How would you like to get some pointers from Katie Couric and Tavis Smiley on how to conduct a good interview, from Bob Woodward on doing in-depth investigative journalism in the digital age, from Mike Isikoff on digging deeper to break news, and from Nicholas Kristof on how to cover a global humanitarian crisis and not get shot? This expert input is now just a click away, thanks to a cool new project being launched today by YouTube. The YouTube Reporters' Center aims to be a one-stop-shop for people looking to learn how to report on what's going on around them, offering over two dozen videos -- ranging from how to capture breaking news on your cell phone to the ins and outs of journalistic ethics.

link: Arianna Huffington: Katie Couric, Tavis Smiley, Bob Woodward, Nicholas Kristof, and I Hit YouTube with Pointers for Citizen Journalists

Infantilization Leads to Intelligence: Have a Long Talk with your Toddler

For decades scientists have noted that mature humans physically resemble immature chimps—we, too, have small jaws, flat faces and sparse body hair. The retention of juvenile features, called neoteny in evolutionary biology, is especially apparent in domesticated animals—thanks to human preferences, many dog breeds have puppy features such as floppy ears, short snouts and large eyes. Now genetic evidence suggests that neoteny could help explain why humans are so radically different from chimpanzees, even though both species share most of the same genes and split apart only about six million years ago, a short time in evolutionary terms.

link: Being More Infantile May Have Led to Bigger Brains: Scientific American

Get Used to This Big Crazy Grin: Franken FINALLY Wins

Minnesota Supreme Court rules Franken beat Coleman - War Room - Salon.com

The Art of Anatomy: William Rimmer

Looking at old prints sometimes reveals more than just their own history, simple or not: there are, from time to time, subtle bits of otherness that creeps into the image, if you allow yourself the time to see it. And sometimes looking at images of the past reveal a little of the future, or the possibility of the future.

William Rimmer’s (1816-1879) Art Anatomy (1877 and subsequent printings) is another such adventure. Rimmer was a very accomplished artist, and was also a fine anatomist. He was very concerned and interested in what happens to the skin, forced into action by all of the stuff underneath it. He pursued the movement of muscle, and bone, and the interplay of the two, and produced a wonderful exponent of artistic anatomy.

link: Ptak Science Books: Dadaist Images in 19th Century Prints: William Rimmer's Artistic Anatomy, 1877

The Preservation of Art Works by Children

From Ptak Science Books:

I think that I can safely say that artwork by children does not make very many appearances in Western art prior to the 20th century. Nor do the originals--considering the ephemeral nature of the effort at art by children, their work just don't seem to survive. Some of that reason--particularly in America--was the scarcity of materials for kids to produce art with: paper was not inexpensive, and neither brushes and paints. Crayons, invented for chubby and reachy fingers, were not invented for the mass market until 1903. (Crayola sold eight crayons in a box for a nickel. The colors? Black, brown, blue, red, purple, orange, yellow, and green.)

Then of course the artwork would have to be saved, somehow, for generations. As much as it would be fascinating to find artwork done at age 4 by your great-great grandparents, it would have to survive the cleansing tendencies of four generations of clean-up. End result: there's just not that much antiquarian chldrens' art floating around.

It also doesn't appear as art in artwork. It is possible to find numerous examples of kids' scratches in stone and such in ancient graffiti, but it doesn't appear as elements of fine artwork, or, for that matter, in book illustration.

There is an example however in Thomas Truman's The Nurse's Rhyme Book, a New Collection of Nursery Rhymes, published in Philadelphia in 1847. The book is filled with unusual illustrations and fantastic ornamental borders, all used in support of some odd, scary, mean and occasionally pretty mid-century posies meant as night-time entertainment for the young ones. Our prize is found on the very last page, the final slug of an illustration to a more-finely illustrated book: a coy, small boy, holding an example of his art, seemingly drawn on a framed slate. He looks happy, pleased, proud to me--on the one hand he is interested in sharing his achievement and on the other is really too shy to share, an emotion I've seen from time to time with my girls.

As a matter of semi-fact, this is a rare emotion to see displayed in art, the too-shy-to-share routine saved more for fluttery self-conscious Victorian grown-ups more so than for children..

link: Ptak Science Books: Missing Images in Art: Depictions of Art by Children

Where's the Bacon? Eco-Atkins Diet

Journalists traditionally like to show "two sides" of the story, even if, as is the case with climate science, one side is fringe, and the result is a confused, angry public. This need for journalistic "balance" has helped develop the equally absurd dichotomy of vegetarian versus meat eater. From which, comes the pale, thin vegetarian, versus the fat meat-eater. Then came the Atkins low carb diet, offering nothing for the overweight vegetarian (yes, they exist), and requiring the awful trade-off of waste-line versus carbon footprint. For me, that left Ben Franklin's dictum, 'everything in moderation,' sounding like the most sensible way forward. TreeHugger does like to stir the pot, however. Adding "Eco-Atkins" to the lifestyle sandwich sounds like more fun than a TV cable talk show. Falafel on, then.

link: ‘Eco-Atkins’ Diet Lowers Weight, Cholesterol Level, & Carbon Footprint : TreeHugger

Repellent Firm? Very!

COLOMBO (Reuters) - A Sri Lankan court threatened a mosquito repellent factory manager with six months in jail for failing to destroy mosquito breeding areas on company premises to stop the spread of dengue fever, an official said Tuesday.

The Indian Ocean island nation is battling an outbreak of the mosquito-borne viral infection that has killed more than 150 people this year and infected 13,479 people, according to Health Ministry figures.

link: Mosquito repellent firm in dock for mosquito breeding | Oddly Enough | Reuters

Global Digital Elevation Map

The most complete terrain map of the Earth's surface has been published.

The data, comprising 1.3 million images, come from a collaboration between the US space agency Nasa and the Japanese trade ministry.

The images were taken by Japan's Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (Aster) aboard the Terra satellite.

The resulting Global Digital Elevation Map covers 99% of the Earth's surface, and will be free to download and use.

link: BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Most complete Earth map published

Honduras: You Can't Go Home Again

The newly appointed president of Honduras, Roberto Micheletti, is warning that if ousted president Manuel Zelaya attempts to return here, he will be immediately arrested and sent to prison.

link: New Honduran President Warns Former Leader of Arrest - washingtonpost.com

Recognition for Ahmadinejad's Victory

According to Ahmadinejad’s website, as of today the following 35 countries have recognized him as the winner of the election:

-India -Tunisia -Malaysia -Lebanon -North Korea -Kuwait -Nicaragua -Comoros -Cambodia -Senegal -Cuba -Belarus -Sudan -Syria -Libya -Algeria -Turkmenistan -Iraq -Kazakhstan -Indonesia -Bahrain -Yemen -Sri Lanka -Ecuador -Russia -Azerbaijan -Qatar -Tajikistan -Armenia -Oman -Turkey -Afghanistan -Pakistan -China -Venezuela

link: niacINsight

Iran: Conditions for Arrrested Protestors

Evin Prison – A Student’s Firsthand Account

“Reza,” a university student who was arrested and detained at Evin Prison, provided a firsthand account of his ordeal via twitter. (Independent confirmation is not available.)

Reza estimated around 200 people were in each room and there were not enough space to even sit on the ground. There was also an awful problem of only one toilet for all people in there and a impossible time limit of around 1 minute for each person. They didn’t open the plastic handcuffs for a day and half, and they randomly beat up people. Reza said the only exception was they didn’t hit arrested people directly in the face. He said in the second day some pain cloth people came with papers forcing people to sign them. The papers were prewritten confessions all in different handwritings saying the signer is a member of a pro-Mousavi organization

link: niacINsight

That Fish Is Actually A Genius: The Aesthetics of Conservation

David A. Fehrenthold writes:

The furry, the feathered, the famous and the edible have dominated government funding for protected species, to the point that one subpopulation of threatened salmon gets more money than 956 other plants and animals combined.

Now, though, scientists say they're noticing a little more love for the unlovely.

They say plain-Jane plants, birds with fluorescent goiters and beetles that meet their mates at rat corpses are getting new money and respect -- finally valued as homely canaries inside treasured ecosystems.

But it still can be a hard sell. That's obvious here in California's Central Valley, where farmers are locked in a bitter fight with a glassy-eyed smelt.

"Over a stupid fish," said Mendota Mayor Robert Silva.

link: Saving Species No Longer About the Prettiest - washingtonpost.com

Revenge of the Geezers

“A group of well-to-do pensioners who lost their savings in the credit crunch staged an arthritic revenge attack and held their terrified financial adviser to ransom,” Roger Boyes reported from Germany for The Times of London.

The alleged kidnapping is the latest example of what is being dubbed “silver crime” – the violent backlash of pensioners who feel cheated by the world.

link: Silver Crime - Schott’s Vocab Blog - NYTimes.com

Iraqis Celebrate the Departure of Their "Liberators"

Iraq declared a public holiday Tuesday to celebrate the official withdrawal of American troops from the country’s cities and towns, emptying the streets as many people stayed home because they feared violence.

link: U.S. Pullout From Iraqi Cities Marked by Holiday - NYTimes.com

Child Survives Airplane Crash

At first, Comoros officials said there were no signs of survivors among the dead bodies floating in the choppy waters. But then rescuers found the young child.

Cox said it reminded him of the 1987 crash of Northwest Flight 255 in Detroit, Michigan in which only a 4-year-old girl survived, while 156 others died.

"This has come up before and it's where the toddler was seated (during the impact) that allowed them to survive," he said.

"It's a miracle and I'm glad ... the toddler is safe. I'm just saddened for the loss of everybody else," he added.

link: Child found alive after plane crashes in sea - CNN.com

Book Review: This is Your Brain on Feng Shui

Say you are living in less than optimal surroundings. Your upstairs neighbor routinely rearranges furniture at midnight. The dog next door is bored and lonely and loud. His owner snarls as you pass by. Your living room is the wrong shape, the windows are in the wrong place, and the paint color that seemed so creatively chic five years ago is getting on your last nerve.

Then you move. And as you bask in silence and symmetry, with pleasant neighbors, a soaring view and soothing white walls, you feel something in your brain click on. Or does it click off? Either way, you feel very good. What is doing the clicking, and why?

These are the deceptively simple questions Esther Sternberg tries to answer in “Healing Spaces,” an exploration of environmental influences over the brain, the body and (all due respect to your new living situation, but there are more important issues at hand) the course of mental and physical disease.

link: Books - The Puzzle of Spaces That Soothe - Review - NYTimes.com

1864: Atlanta Picket

1864. A passel of Yankees in repose. "Federal picket post near Atlanta, Georgia." Wet collodion glass plate negative by George N. Barnard

link: Old Dixie Down: 1864 | Shorpy Photo Archive

Rescue and Recovery: The History of Lost Events

Sam Roberts writes:

Forlornly unidentified and altogether forgotten, these sites have been literally lost to history.

On Avenue of the Americas, there is a block where the first cellphone call was completed in 1973; on West 125th Street, where the old Blumstein’s department store stood, nothing marks the place where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was stabbed in 1958.

Then there is the spot on Fifth Avenue where Winston Churchill, crossing against the light, was struck by a car in 1931 and nearly killed.

And what about the old Winter Garden Theater at 691 Broadway? In 1864, on the very night that Confederate sympathizers singled out the Lafarge Hotel next door in their plot to burn down New York, the Booth brothers — John Wilkes, Junius Brutus Jr. and Edwin — starred in “Julius Caesar.” The benefit performance, which was billed as the brothers’ sole joint engagement, raised $3,500 for the Shakespeare statue that still stands in Central Park.

Andrew Carroll, 39, an amateur historian, is embarking this week on a 50-state journey to uncover, memorialize and preserve these and other sites where history happened serendipitously, and which, for one reason or another, have been relegated to anonymity.

link: On a Mission to Mark Places of Long-Forgotten Historic Moments - NYTimes.com

If Nobody Else Chews the Way You Chew, Are You Rude? Dino Mastication

Unlike most animals, which have a complex joint on the lower jaw, these dinosaurs had a hinge between the upper jaw and the rest of the skull to allow for much more movement than many of their peers had. The tiny scratches show that when they chomped down on food—likely cattails and other low vegetation—the upper jaw would be forced outward, sliding teeth sideways across those in the lower jaw. This motion, combined with up, down, front and back movements, would shred and grind fibrous plant material that made up their diets.

link: Duckbilled dinosaurs dined with an unusual bite: Scientific American Blog

Dalai Lama: No Monk Left Behind on Science

Tibetan monks and nuns may spend 12 hours a day studying Buddhist philosophy and logic, reciting prayers and debating scriptures. But science has been given a special boost by the Dalai Lama, who has long advocated modern education in Tibetan monasteries and schools in exile, alongside Tibet’s traditions. India is home to at least 120,000 Tibetans, the largest population outside Tibet.

Science may seem at odds with Tibetan religious rituals. Reincarnations of high Tibetan monks are identified through dreams and auspicious signs. The Dalai Lama credits the state oracle with helping him decide to flee Tibet in 1959 as Chinese troops advanced on Lhasa.

Yet the Tibetan spiritual leader views science and Buddhism as complementary “investigative approaches with the same greater goal, of seeking the truth,” he wrote in “The Universe in a Single Atom,” his book on “how science and spirituality can serve our world.” He stresses that science is especially important for monastics who study the nature of the mind and the relationship between mind and brain.

Initial resistance from some senior monks and fears of diluting traditional studies in monasteries have gradually eased. Now the Dalai Lama hopes that, with help from Emory and other programs, science will become part of a new curriculum, with science textbooks in Tibetan and specialist translators, leading to a generation of monastic leaders that are scientifically literate.

link: Tibetan Monks and Nuns Turn Their Minds Toward Science - NYTimes.com

Controversy over Rafsanjani's Stance in Iran

Rafsanjani Has NOT Caved

June 29, 2009 Guest post by Jill Marie Parillo, Physicians for Social Responsibility

Very little press reported on Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani’s speech Sunday June 28, and I just don’t buy the analyses that are out there on it. CNN does have a better piece, which is more neutral. Most analyses claim that Rafsanjani is caving to Khamenei. For one, the speech does not sound to me (what I have heard translated into English) like a clear statement in support of Supreme Leader Khamenei, and it’s never a good sign when PressTV claims it to be true.

Rather, Rafsanjani said that he supported Khamenei’s decision to extend the Guardian Council’s time (by 5 days) to consider complaints of election fraud. In some ways this is only confirming that he thinks there was fraud and complaints need to be heard. Coming as no huge surprise, the 12 member Guardian Council confirmed today, after a partial recount, that the election was legal and Ahmadinejad is still President.

link: niacINsight

Cartoon Map of Britain

'Britannia' Etching by James Gillray; published in London by Hannah Humphrey in 1791 Image source: British Museum

link: BibliOdyssey

Health Care Status Quo "Highly Concentrated," not Competitive, Study Shows

Zachary Roth writes:

Defenders of the status quo on health care like to point out that a public option will destroy the system of robust free-market competition that currently exists. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), speaking earlier this month on Fox News, called President Obama's plan the "first step in destroying the best health care system the world has ever known." A public option, Shelby added, would "destroy the marketplace for health care."

But the notion that most American consumers enjoy anything like a competitive marketplace for health care is flatly false. And a study issued last month by a pro-reform group makes that strikingly clear.

The report, released by Health Care for America Now (HCAN), uses data compiled by the American Medical Association to show that 94 percent of the country's insurance markets are defined as "highly concentrated," according to Justice Department guidelines. Predictably, that's led to skyrocketing costs for patients, and monster profits for the big health insurers. Premiums have gone up over the past six years by more than 87 percent, on average, while profits at ten of the largest publicly traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007.

link: Health-Care Market Characterized By Consolidation, Not Competition | TPMMuckraker

The Wisdom of Indefinite Detention?

Bob Herbert writes:

No one seems to know how old Mohammed Jawad was when he was seized by Afghan forces in Kabul six and a half years ago and turned over to American custody. Some reports say he was 14. Some say 16. The Afghan government believes he was 12.

What is not in dispute is that he was no older than an adolescent, and that since his capture he has been tortured and otherwise put through hell. The evidence against him has been discredited. He has tried to commit suicide. But the U.S. won’t let him go.

link: Op-Ed Columnist - How Long Is Long Enough? - NYTimes.com

Atlanta Garage Collapses

Part of a six-floor parking garage near downtown Atlanta collapsed, crushing at least 35 cars. There were no immediate reports of injuries, though firefighters were waiting for the building to be stabilized before doing a car-to-car search. A cause was not immediately known. Hardin Construction, the general contractor on the garage, was one of three companies that were working at the Atlanta Botanical Garden when a pedestrian bridge collapsed in December, killing one worker and injuring 18.

link: National Briefing - South - Georgia - Collapse at Parking Garage - NYTimes.com

Spain: General Franco Demoted

MADRID (Reuters) - Madrid's city hall Monday stripped former Spanish dictator Francisco Franco of his title as honorary mayor and adopted son of the capital, 33 years after his death began the transition to democracy.

Councilors of all political colors unanimously voted to remove the titles, as well as medals Madrid conferred on the right-wing general, a spokesman for the council said.

"The capital of Spain is now clean of support for dictators," left-wing Councilor Milagros Hernandez, was quoted as saying on the website of TV news channel CNN+.

link: Madrid strips Franco of honorary titles | Oddly Enough | Reuters

O Arizona: Your Traffic Cameras are Biting you in the Ass

Greg Gurule writes:

Paradise Valley will have to refund more than $36,000 to more than 1,000 drivers who received tickets for running a bad traffic light.

The yellow turn signal at the intersection of Tatum Boulevard and McDonald Drive lasted only three seconds instead of the four-plus seconds that the city requires.

The town is investigating whether it was human error or a mechanical problem that led to the mistimed light between May 7 and June 17 of this year.

Paradise Valley said it has repaired the problem and plans to refund all the citation money to drivers who were ticketed by the bad light.

link: Valley Traffic Camera Gone Bad Blamed For Citing Innocent Drivers - Phoenix News Story - KPHO Phoenix

Fly Away Home, Environmental Meance: Ladybirds Pose Problems in UK

The Harlequin ladybird is putting over 1,000 species in the UK in peril, scientists have warned.

"The rate of spread is dramatic and unprecedented," said Dr Helen Roy of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.

The ladybird has spread to most parts of the UK in just four years, preying on many other insects.

link: BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Ladybird 'risk to 1,000 species'

Sweden Short on Creationism Museums: Let's Send Them One

The worlds of academic paleontology and creationism rarely collide, but the former paid a visit to the latter last Wednesday. The University of Cincinnati was hosting the North American Paleontological Convention, where scientists presented their latest research at the frontiers of the ancient past. In a break from the lectures, about 70 of the attendees boarded school buses for a field trip to the Creation Museum, on the other side of the Ohio River.

“I’m very curious and fascinated,” Stefan Bengtson, a professor of paleozoology at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, said before the visit, “because we have little of that kind of thing in Sweden.”

link: Paleontology and Creationism Meet but Don’t Mesh - NYTimes.com

Guardian Council: Election Confirmed

Iran's Guardian Council announced its "final decision" Monday on the disputed June 12 presidential election, dismissing all opposition complaints of fraud and affirming a landslide victory for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

link: Guardian Council Declares Ahmadinejad Victory 'Final' - washingtonpost.com

Druid Litter: Stonehenge

This year 36,500 members of the great unwashed public were allowed in [at Stonehenge] to celebrate the solstice and have a massive drinking party. They responded by leaving plastic rubbish all over the place...

link: TYWKIWDBI: Summer solstice at Stonehenge

Peter Steinhauer: Hong Kong

link: Peter Steinhauer | [EV +/Exposure Compensation

Slate's Photo Essay: Portraits of Instability

Moving and effective photo essay on Slate: images from "fragile states." The one below is from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

link: Slate

Rainbow Raid: Gay Pride in Texas

Shortly after midnight on Sunday, police raided a gay bar in Fort Worth, TX, and arrested seven customers for public intoxication. (One man was taken to the hospital “with bleeding in his brain after officers threw him to the ground and used zip-ties to handcuff him.”) Police said they were simply conducting an “alcohol beverage code inspection” when several customers made sexual advances toward the officers. However, the owner of the Rainbow Lounge, J.R. Schrock, said that claim was a “lie.” “The groping of the police officer — really? We’re gay, but we’re not dumb,” Schrock said.

link: Think Progress » Home Page

Iran: Breaking the Chain

Translated news from an human rights activists in Iran:

“People in Melat Park, Valiasr Sq., Vanak and sidewalks of Vailasr St. are holding hands and are trying to form a human chain.”

“But reports of sporadic clashes indicate that the armed forces are trying to prevent the formation of the human chain.”

“Urgent: Mojtaba Tehrani, reporter for the Etemade Meli newspaper which belongs to Karroubi, has been arrested.”

“Security police officers entered Mojtaba Tehrani’s house and in addition to searching the house took away personal items such as computer and compact CDs.”

link: niacINsight

Iraqi Refugees in the US: Whoops, Got Us Again

According to an IRC report released this month, "The resettlement program in the United States fails individuals with high levels of vulnerability, especially during difficult economic times." The report called for increased emergency funding and an overhaul of the program.

In an example cited by the organization, Hajer, a 38-year-old Iraqi refugee, arrived in Phoenix, Arizona, with her three kids last year speaking very little English. She could afford only one semester of English classes at a local college. Last December, she fell ill and lost her job at a daycare center. The public assistance she receives, $335 dollars a month, leaves her short $481 after paying rent of $816.

With the economic crash, only 51 percent of refugees are becoming self-sufficient after 120 days in 2008, down from 74 percent in 2007. Twelve percent of the refugees newly resettled by the IRC are at risk of homelessness.

"Few imagined that they would receive such short-term and limited assistance upon arrival or that they could become homeless in the country that offered them shelter," said IRC President George Rupp in a public statement. "They deserve better."

link: Crossover Dreams: Iraqi refugees in the U.S.: strangers in paradise

Borges: "A Dream" (Iran)

A DREAM by Jorge Luis Borges

In a deserted place in Iran there is a not very tall stone tower that has neither door nor window. In the only room (with a dirt floor and shaped like a circle) there is a wooden table and a bench. In that circular cell, a man who looks like me is writing in letters I cannot understand a long poem about a man who in another circular cell is writing a poem about a man who in another circular cell . . . The process never ends and no one will be able to read what the prisoners write. (Translated, from the Spanish, by Suzanne Jill Levine.)

link: A Dream: Poetry: The New Yorker

The Saving Power of Art: Pol Pot

A survivor of the Khmer Rouge's notorious Tuol Sleng prison wept at the trial of his torturer Monday and called for justice for the 1.7 million Cambodians who died under Pol Pot's tyrannical regime.

In a harrowing account of his detention at the S-21 interrogation center, where more than 14,000 people died, artist Vann Nath said his life was only spared because chief torturer Duch liked his paintings of "Brother Number One," Pol Pot.

"I survived because Duch felt good when he walked into my workshop," Nath said in his testimony against the ailing chief of the S-21 prison, whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav.

"My suffering cannot be erased -- the memories keep haunting me," said Nath, who lost two children to Pol Pot's 1975-1979 "killing fields" reign of terror.

link: Pol Pot paintings saved my life, S-21 survivor says | International | Reuters

The End of Kodachrome

Doug Steley said:

"I took this picture of a sand dune near Windorah, Queensland, Australia, on 64 ASA Kodachrome, nothing did RED like Kodachrome.

link: BBC - Viewfinder: Kodachrome II

When You're a Lion You're a Lion All The Way: Lion Pride

Lions form prides to defend territory against other lions, not to improve their hunting success, a study reveals.

In doing so, they act much like street gangs, gathering together to protect their turf from interlopers, says a leading lion expert.

The bigger the gang, the more successful the lions are, information that could help conserve wild lions.

The discovery helps explain why lions, uniquely among the cat species, live together in social groups.

link: BBC - Earth News - Lion prides form to win turf wars

Book Review: "In the Land of Invented Languages"

As Arika Okrent writes in her new book, "In the Land of Invented Languages," "from an engineering perspective, language is kind of a disaster." English in particular is choked with irregular words and anachronistic phrases that long ago stopped making intuitive sense. If it were a car, it would be a jalopy patched together from a bunch of spare parts. Such is the curse of the natural language. It's not as if French or Swahili is much more logical.

So it's easy to understand why thousands of people over hundreds of years have tried to create a better language from scratch

link: Book Review: 'In the Land of Invented Languages' by Arika Okrent - washingtonpost.com

D.C. Metrorail Crash: The Problem of the Interface

The problem, said several experts who have studied such accidents, is that these investigations invariably focus our attention on discrete aspects of machine or human error, whereas the real problem often lies in the relationship between humans and their automated systems.

link: Metro Crash May Exemplify Paradox of Human-Machine Interaction - washingtonpost.com

Krugman: "people who show no sign of being interested in the truth"--The Climate Debate

Paul Krugman writes:

In other words, we’re facing a clear and present danger to our way of life, perhaps even to civilization itself. How can anyone justify failing to act?

Well, sometimes even the most authoritative analyses get things wrong. And if dissenting opinion-makers and politicians based their dissent on hard work and hard thinking — if they had carefully studied the issue, consulted with experts and concluded that the overwhelming scientific consensus was misguided — they could at least claim to be acting responsibly.

But if you watched the debate on Friday, you didn’t see people who’ve thought hard about a crucial issue, and are trying to do the right thing. What you saw, instead, were people who show no sign of being interested in the truth. They don’t like the political and policy implications of climate change, so they’ve decided not to believe in it — and they’ll grab any argument, no matter how disreputable, that feeds their denial.

link: Op-Ed Columnist - Betraying the Planet - NYTimes.com

Book Review: "Conquest of the Useless"--Hertzog Makes "Fitzcarraldo"

This is what “a beautiful, fresh, sunny morning” was like for Werner Herzog during the Sisyphean miseries that plagued the shooting of his Amazonian epic “Fitzcarraldo” (1982): one of two newly hatched chicks drowned in a saucer containing only a few millimeters of water. The other lost a leg and a piece of its stomach to a murderous rabbit. And Mr. Herzog realized, for the umpteenth time, that “a sense of desolation was tearing me up inside, like termites in a fallen tree trunk.”

link: Books of The Times - Werner Herzog’s ‘Conquest of the Useless’ - The Jungle, the Director and the Madness - Review - NYTimes.com

Iran Situation Warped Usual Journalistic Processes

Many mainstream media sources, which have in the past been critical of the undifferentiated sources of information on the Web, had little choice but to throw open their doors in this case. As the protests against Mr. Ahmadinejad grew, the government sharply curtailed the foreign press. As visas expired, many journalists packed up, and the ones who stayed were barred from reporting on the streets.

In a news vacuum, amateur videos and eyewitness accounts became the de facto source for information. In fact, the symbol of the protests, the image of a young woman named Neda bleeding to death on a Tehran street, was filmed by two people holding camera phones.

link: In Iran, Journalism Makes Use of Unverified News - NYTimes.com

Louisiana's Marshes Shrink Inexorably

Desperate to halt the erosion of Louisiana’s coast, officials there are talking about breaking Mississippi River levees south of New Orleans to restore the nourishing flow of muddy water into the state’s marshes.

But in a new analysis, scientists at Louisiana State University say inland dams trap so much sediment that the river no longer carries enough to halt marsh loss, especially now that global warming is speeding a rise in sea levels.

As a result, the loss of thousands of additional square miles of marshland is “inevitable,” the scientists report in Monday’s issue of Nature Geoscience.

link: Dams Are Thwarting Louisiana Marsh Restoration, Study Says - NYTimes.com

Who Owns the Rain? In Colorado, A Real Legal Issue

For the first time since territorial days, rain will be free for the catching here, as more and more thirsty states part ways with one of the most entrenched codes of the West.

Precipitation, every last drop or flake, was assigned ownership from the moment it fell in many Western states, making scofflaws of people who scooped rainfall from their own gutters. In some instances, the rights to that water were assigned a century or more ago.

link: It’s Now Legal to Catch a Raindrop in Colorado - NYTimes.com

Atlas Oscura: Concrete Park

The untrained eye married to the compulsion to create can produce the most strangely moving art. The Wisconsin Concrete Park is an outdoor museum housing 237 concrete sculptures built by the self-taught outsider artist Fred Smith. Smith was a retired lumberjack who didn't sculpt his first figure until the age of 65.

The subjects of his park, which are decorated mostly with shards of broken glass from beer bottles, are of American folklore, tradition, historical events, and nature, ranging from Native Americans, to miners, from soldiers, to woodland creatures. Smith created this concrete walk through American history unmotivated by money or fame, but built the masterwork, in his words, "...for all the American people everywhere. They need something like this."

link: Fred Smith's Wisconsin Concrete Park | Atlas Obscura

RIP Iz the Wiz

Iz the Wiz was a legend among graffiti artists, by almost all accounts “the longest-reigning all-city king in N.Y.C. history,” as the graffiti Web site at149st.com puts it. In other words, Iz put his name, or tag, on subway cars running on every line in the system more times than any other artist. Michael Martin — Iz the Wiz — died on June 17 in Spring Hill, Fla., where he had moved a few years ago. He was 50. The cause was a heart attack, said Ed Walker, who is working on a biography and documentary of Iz the Wiz.

link: Subway Graffiti Artist Iz the Wiz, Michael Martin, Dies at 50 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com

God Evolved and is Descended From. . . .

In his brilliant new book, “The Evolution of God,” Robert Wright tells the story of how God grew up. He starts with the deities of hunter- gatherer tribes, moves to those of chiefdoms and nations, then on to the polytheism of the early Israelites and the monotheism that followed, and then to the New Testament and the Koran, before finishing off with the modern multinational Gods of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Wright’s tone is reasoned and careful, even hesitant, throughout, and it is nice to read about issues like the morality of Christ and the meaning of jihad without getting the feeling that you are being shouted at. His views, though, are provocative and controversial. There is something here to annoy almost everyone.

link: Book Review - 'The Evolution of God,' by Robert Wright - Review - NYTimes.com

Quantum Computing Progress

A team led by Yale University researchers has created the first rudimentary solid-state quantum processor, taking another step toward the ultimate dream of building a quantum computer.

link: Scientists create first electronic quantum processor

Duck Indeed: Head Shrinkers Shrink Head to Cure Mental Illness

Lin Zongxiu, from the southwestern province of Sichuan, heard in 2008 that soup made with a man’s head could help cure her daughter who had suffered from psychiatric problems for years, the Chengdu Commercial newspaper reported.

Lin and her husband decided to enlist the help of a man in December who knocked unconscious a drunk 76-year-old passer-by before beheading him, the paper claimed.

The couple then gave their 25-year-old daughter soup made from the man’s head, and duck.

link: Chinese woman boiled man's head to cure daugther's psychiatric problems - Telegraph

The Ayatollahs Have a Squabble, Embroiling Not Less than Everything

Ayatollah Amoli belonged to a group of clergy who issued a fatwa stating that cheating in elections are forbidden (haram). Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, Ahmadinejad´s messianic ally, issued another fatwa saying that it is permissible (halal) to cheat, if its in the interest of the regime. Keyhan sides with Khamenei and Ahmadinejad.

link: RealClearWorld - The Compass Blog

95% of Salon Readers Want Goats; What Does That Tell You?

Ditching it all to move to the country and raise goats is probably the fantasy of about 95 percent of Salon readers. How were you able to make it work and overcome the seeming obstacles that life throws up in front of us?

We had a rent-controlled apartment in the East Village, but we were away from it whenever we could be. Both of us taught at universities part-time, so we had summers and long weekends at this cabin in West Virginia where we learned to grow our vegetables and generally live rurally. So moving to Vermont felt like moving to the suburbs compared to Appalachia; it's only a four-hour drive from New York. The goats were the final imprimatur. They were also the excuse for never having to go back to New York again because we had to watch the animals. The truth is if we didn't have other income from teaching and writing it'd be very hard to do this, certainly in the way we do it, which is seasonally and small-scale. It's not a weekend thing. That said, there are people we know up here we were inspired by who have a day job and as many goats as we do and make cheese.

link: Living the dream, with goats | Salon Life

Shouting Fire: A Documentary on Free Speech

Neil Genzlinger writes:

It is presumably an accident of timing, but in the documentary “Shouting Fire,” boy, do the scenes of protesters being arrested during the 2004 Republican convention in New York call to mind recent images coming out of Iran.

That will only add to the film’s leftward lean, at least in the eyes of any conservative types who happen to tune in, making them more inclined to dismiss it. Too bad, because the film, Monday on HBO, explores First Amendment issues that everyone should give some dispassionate, platitude-free thought.

link: Television Review - 'Shouting Fire' - In HBO Documentary, Some Speech Is More Free Than Others - NYTimes.com

Language and Thought

Lera Boroditsky writes:

Humans communicate with one another using a dazzling array of languages, each differing from the next in innumerable ways. Do the languages we speak shape the way we see the world, the way we think, and the way we live our lives? Do people who speak different languages think differently simply because they speak different languages? Does learning new languages change the way you think? Do polyglots think differently when speaking different languages?

These questions touch on nearly all of the major controversies in the study of mind. They have engaged scores of philosophers, anthropologists, linguists, and psychologists, and they have important implications for politics, law, and religion. Yet despite nearly constant attention and debate, very little empirical work was done on these questions until recently. For a long time, the idea that language might shape thought was considered at best untestable and more often simply wrong. Research in my labs at Stanford University and at MIT has helped reopen this question. We have collected data around the world: from China, Greece, Chile, Indonesia, Russia, and Aboriginal Australia. What we have learned is that people who speak different languages do indeed think differently and that even flukes of grammar can profoundly affect how we see the world. Language is a uniquely human gift, central to our experience of being human. Appreciating its role in constructing our mental lives brings us one step closer to understanding the very nature of humanity.

link: Edge: HOW DOES OUR LANGUAGE SHAPE THE WAY WE THINK? By Lera Boroditsky

Bloggers Surveyed about Ethics

Overall, [the survey] results suggest that bloggers do expect a degree of ethical behavior from the community at large, and they practice (or at least they believe they practice) ethical behavior at an even higher rate. There are a number of ways to reconcile this with the poor reception that the proposed formal code of behavior received. It's possible that the loudest voices on the issue came from a minority within the blogging community, or their were objections to the specific aspects of this code. But the results of the survey suggest that people won't necessarily demand that the rest of the community adheres to the standards they set for themselves.

link: Blogger ethics: proper attribution > accountability - Ars Technica

Women are from the Garden, Men are from the Compost Heap: Women's Voices Make Tomatoes Grow

We may live in society that stresses equality between the genders, but when it comes to gardening, women seem to have an upper larynx. According to a recent experiment by the Royal Horticultural Society in England, tomato plants grow faster when they are crooned at. The sung-to tomatoes grew two inches higher than their unserenaded counterparts. Female voices worked especially well for hasty tomato growth. Male voices, on the other hand, couldn’t make the tomatoes grow as quickly, and in some cases, low-voiced males were able to stunt the growth of the tomatoes by warbling at them. This must be why we throw rotten tomatoes at horrible singers. Wokka Wokka.

link: Women Should Sing to Their Tomatoes. Guys Should Shut Up. : TreeHugger

You Mean It's Not Only Americans Who Don't Know This Stuff!? -- Brits Fail Bible Quiz

The public is widely ignorant of the stories and people who provide the basis of Christianity, a survey has found, despite 75 per cent of respondents owning a copy of the Bible.

The National Biblical Literacy Survey found that as few as 10 per cent of people understood the main characters in the Bible and their relevance.

link: Britain 'knows little about Bible' - News, Books - The Independent

Honduran Congress Appoints New President; Old President Denies Legitimacy of the Appointment

The Honduran Congress voted Sunday to strip President Jose Manuel Zelaya of his powers and named the president of the Congress, Roberto Micheletti, as provisional president.

Zelaya was removed from his residence Sunday morning by military forces who transported him to Costa Rica.

He said Sunday that he planned to continue carrying out his duties and would travel to Managua, Nicaragua, to attend a summit of Central American heads-of-state Monday.

Zelaya told CNN en Español that he denies that a letter of resignation read aloud in an emergency congressional session is his.

"Only the people can take away or give me power," Zelaya said at a press conference in Costa Rica, where Honduran military forces had transported him following Sunday morning's coup.

link: Honduran Congress names provisional president - CNN.com

Bridget, the Winged Dragon Cousin of Wall-e, to Rove Mars

A Devon university is hosting a summit of the European Space Agency (Esa) and the United States space agency, Nasa.

The University of Plymouth is providing the venue for the agencies' Bilateral Science Summit. About 20 delegates will attend from Monday to Wednesday.

Topics would include robotic exploration, the university said.

Bridget, a prototype for the ExoMars rover

link: BBC NEWS | UK | England | Devon | Uni summit reaches for the stars

Crop Circles Not Made By Opiated Wallabies or Stoned Hippies (god bless 'em) Actually Reveal Something

A thousand years older than nearby Stonehenge, the site includes the remains of wooden temples and two massive, 6,000-year-old tombs that are among "Britain's first architecture," according to archaeologist Helen Wickstead, leader of the Damerham Archaeology Project. Discovered during a routine aerial survey by English Heritage, the U.K. government's historic-preservation agency, the "crop circles" are the results of buried archaeological structures interfering with plant growth.

link: "Crop Circles" Reveal an Ancient Burial Site a Thousand Years Older Than Stonehenge - Boing Boing

RoboGod will Read Your Web

What if the wisdom of Web could be yours, without having to read through it one page at a time? That's what the military wants.

DARPA has hired a company to develop a reading machine to reduce the gap between the ever increasing mountain of digitized text and the intelligence community's insatiable appetite for data input.

BBN Technologies was awarded the $29.7 million contract to develop a universal text engine capable of capturing knowledge from written matter and rendering it into a format that artificial intelligence systems (AI) and human analysts can work with.

The military will use the Machine Reading Program, as it's officially called, to automatically monitor the technological and political activities of nation states and transnational organizations-which could mean everything from al-Qaeda to the U.N.

link: Reading machine to snoop on Web | Military Tech - CNET News

Female Iranian Police "Out In Force"

5:47 pm: According to a contact in Tehran, women police are now out in force. Not that the women protesters were free from being attacked, but now there is a special female force solely designed for them.

link: niacINsight

Some UK Embassy Staff Released

5:17 pm: Some British embassy officials released (VOA)

Iranian state media is reporting that authorities have released some members of the British Embassy staff in Tehran, one day after eight Iranian staffers there were detained for alleged links to the nation’s post-election unrest.

A report quotes the nation’s intelligence minister, Qolam Hosein Mohseni-Ejei as saying Sunday it has proof that some British embassy employees collected news about the recent protests.

It is unclear how many staffers remain in custody.

link: niacINsight

The Pope and St. Paul's Bones; Or, Nobody Ever Said the Mouthpiece of God on Earth Needed to be Logical

The first-ever scientific tests on what are believed to be the remains of the Apostle Paul "seem to conclude" that they do indeed belong to the Roman Catholic saint, Pope Benedict XVI said Sunday.

Archaeologists recently unearthed and opened the white marble sarcophagus located under the Basilica of St. Paul's Outside the Walls in Rome, which for some 2,000 years has been believed by the faithful to be the tomb of St. Paul.

Benedict said scientists had conducted carbon dating tests on bone fragments found inside the sarcophagus and confirmed that they date from the first or second century.

"This seems to confirm the unanimous and uncontested tradition that they are the mortal remains of the Apostle Paul," Benedict said, announcing the findings at a service in the basilica to mark the end of the Vatican's Paoline year, in honor of the apostle.

link: Pope: Scientific analysis done on St. Paul's bones - washingtonpost.com

Iran: "Tens of Thousands" in the Streets

1:53 pm: Clashes in North Tehran

(Via AP) Riot police clashed with up to 3,000 protesters near a mosque in north Tehran on Sunday, using tear gas and truncheons to break up Iran’s first post-election demonstration in five days, witnesses said.

Witnesses told The Associated Press that some protesters fought back, chanting: “Where is my vote?” They said others described scenes of brutality — including the alleged police beating of an elderly woman — in the clashes around the Ghoba Mosque.

The reports could not immediately be independently verified because of tight restrictions imposed on journalists in Iran.

According to one Iranian human rights activist, the Ghoba Mosque was full and there were “tens of thousands” in the nearby streets. She reports the police are beating people to disperse the crowd.

link: niacINsight