A New Kind of Bed-Sit

As more and more U.S. cities replace their traditional bus stop benches with all manner of ingeniously inhospitable seating arrangements meant to prevent anyone from sleeping on them, one Canadian city has taken the opposite approach, thanks in part to a local advertising agency (story, slideshow): http://www.fastcoexist.com/3032631/these-park-benches-welcome-the-homeless-instead-of-rejecting-them#1

Africa on Wheels

Daniel Matheny

Interestingly, no black African has yet competed in the Tour de France, but that is set to change, if not this year, then next. Jonathan "Jock" Boyer, a Californian who was the first American in the Tour, has been helping put together a cycling team in Rwanda and has now moved on to developing Team Africa Rising, a partnership between Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Eritrea. First up: Bonaventure Uwizeyimana or Natnael Berhane?: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/07/140705-cycling-africa-rwanda-bicycle-cyclists-race/

The First Thousand Days

Pelotas, Brazil                                                        Fabrício Marcon, via flickr

Speaking of Brazil (and we were, weren't we, at some point? I think it had to do with soccer [and that's a funny little connection, as the town in this post is called Pelotas]), there's a fascinating long-term study going on there, led by Dr. Cesar Victoria, in which all the children born in Pelotas in 1982 (and now, 1993 and 2004 as well) have been followed for the last 30-something years. Among the findings to come out of this study is the discovery that, nutritionally, it is the first 1,000 days of life (270 days in utero and the two years after birth) that are the most important in dictating a person's physical and mental health for the rest of his/her existence. After that, any attempt to "catch up" can lead to obesity and its concomitant complications: http://blog.wellcome.ac.uk/2012/10/19/cesar-victora-30-years-of-brazil-cohort-studies/

Meditating on Telomeres

© Paul Foreman

We know that stress ~ both psychological and physical ~ can age one faster than almost anything, and we know why. It's the telomeres, the protective "caps" on the ends of our chromosomes. They wear down each time a cell divides and DNA is copied, and that leads to aging as the cells begin to fail and become less able to divide. But there's an enzyme that can repair them. It's called telomerase. In 2004, a study of 58 women, half with high stress levels due to their situations as mothers of chronically ill children and half used as controls, showed definitively that stress wears on our telomeres and lowers our levels of telomerase. And, 10 years later, science is proving that that's where the healing power of meditation comes in: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140701-can-meditation-delay-ageing

Condos il Colosseo

view of Rome circa 1490                                                                                    en.wikipedia.org

New homes available! Arched entrances! Terracotta plumbing! Enjoy a game of chess where gladiators fought and died! Stables and workshops nearby! To rent, contact the friars of the Santa Maria Nova convent. Recent excavations have unearthed evidence that Rome's Colloseum was used for housing from the 9th century until about 1349: http://news.discovery.com/history/romes-colosseum-a-condominium-in-medieval-times-140630.htm

The Final Chapter

Kate Russell, second from left, and fellow artists  Clara Molden/The Telegraph

For an unfinished piece of work, the Bayeux Tapestry, created almost 1,000 years ago and discovered 300 years ago, has gotten a lot of attention over the centuries. It is a 231-foot-long (70 m), 20-inch-high (50 cm) embroidery made to honor the exploits of William the Conqueror. Experts think it was originally probably 8 to 10 feet longer and that the missing piece depicted William's coronation. That episode has now been illustrated, thanks to an American who retired to the British island of Alderney and a group of locals who took up her cause with passion and fastidious energy: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-28018096
   A beautifully animated Bayeux Tapestry (video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_559561&feature=iv&src_vid=bDaB-NNyM8o&v=LtGoBZ4D4_E

Get It While You Can

The Chronicle

OK, I'll admit I'm posting this mostly because I am and have always been a huge Janis fan. Her version of "Summertime" curls my toes. And "Piece of My Heart," well ... come on! I dare anyone to listen to that without at least swaying, not to mention breaking out into a full-tilt boogie. The ostensible reason for this post is that she's getting a stamp of her own from the USPS, and it's pretty nice. I think she would have approved: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/janis-joplin-stamp-artwork-unveiled-20140630

Going With the Flow UPDATED

©Hélène Binet

With her design for the Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku, Azerbaijan, Zaha Hadid became the first female to win the London Design Museum's Design of the Year award, and her building became the first architecture entry to win (http://www.archdaily.com/522242/london-design-museum-s-design-of-the-year-heydar-aliyev-center-zaha-hadid-architects/).   "In historical Islamic architecture, rows, grids, or sequences of columns flow to infinity like trees in a forest, establishing non-hierarchical space," the architect explains. "Continuous calligraphic and ornamental patterns flow from carpets to walls, walls to ceilings, ceilings to domes, establishing seamless relationships and blurring distinctions between architectural elements and the ground they inhabit. Our intention was to relate to that historical understanding of architecture, not through the use of mimicry or a limiting adherence to the iconography of the past, but rather by developing a firmly contemporary interpretation, reflecting a more nuanced understanding" (story, lots of pix): http://www.archdaily.com/448774/heydar-aliyev-center-zaha-hadid-architects/
UPDATE ~ Apparently, this building ~ and some other buildings by Hadid ~ have raised ethical concerns. Human Rights Watch and protesters in Baku point to forced evictions to make way for the Center, claiming that, in all, 250 homes had been razed. Hadid's company said the contractor on that project was internationally accredited: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/jun/30/zaha-hadid-architecture

Forward to the Past

Abu-Bakr, caliph from 632 to 634

ISIS/ISIL recently announced that it was re-establishing a caliphate and would henceforth go by the all-encompassing moniker Islamic State. The rest of us went scrambling for our now moldy middle-school history books, as we were sure that's where and when we last heard the term caliphate. Scrounge no longer. Don't you know by now that you can find everything on the Internet?: http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/06/30/326916530/whats-a-caliphate

   In the introduction to his 2013 book The Inevitable Caliphate?, Reza Pankhurst writes, "The apparent absence of the caliphate from public consciousness for several decades and its subsequent re-emergence as part of what may be perceived as a broad Islamic revival, as well as the opening of public space for political discussion in the Middle East, raises many interesting questions. These range from what the idea means to those who propagate it, how it is used in the counter-hegemonic discourses of the Islamic thinkers and groups engaged in a struggle to wrest power from entrenched regional ruling elites, and to what extent it is adopted as a symbol of reactionary rejection of modernity and Westernization rather than as a political alternative in its own right."

Just Because: 'Gone With the Wind'

Margaret Mitchell's novel about a Southern belle just before, during, and after the Civil War was published on June 30, 1936. Here's the back story, according to This Day in History:
   "In 1926, Mitchell was forced to quit her job as a reporter at the Atlanta Journal to recover from a series of physical injuries. With too much time on her hands, Mitchell soon grew restless. Working on a Remington typewriter, a gift from her second husband, John R. Marsh, in their cramped one-bedroom apartment, Mitchell began telling the story of an Atlanta belle named Pansy O'Hara.
   "In tracing Pansy's tumultuous life from the antebellum South through the Civil War and into the Reconstruction era, Mitchell drew on the tales she had heard from her parents and other relatives, as well as from Confederate war veterans she had met as a young girl. While she was extremely secretive about her work, Mitchell eventually gave the manuscript to Harold Latham, an editor from New York's MacMillan Publishing. Latham encouraged Mitchell to complete the novel, with one important change: the heroine's name. Mitchell agreed to change it to Scarlett, now one of the most memorable names in the history of literature."

PART 1

CHAPTER I

 Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. In her face were too sharply blended the delicate features of her mother, a Coast aristocrat of French descent, and the heavy ones of her florid Irish father. But it was an arresting face, pointed of chin, square of jaw. Her eyes

The Kids Are Alright

Ralph Samuelson, inventor of waterskiing

Every once in a while ~ well, amazingly often, actually ~ we hear about someone under the age of 20 coming up with a brilliant invention. The latest is the young Andrew Pelham, who came up with a simple, inexpensive way of reminding drivers that there is a child in the back seat, the hope-for result being that fewer infants will be left to die in hot cars (story, video: http://www.wkrn.com/story/22872890/local-boy-invents-device-to-stop-children-being-left-in-hot-cars). From earmuffs to waterskiing to the calculator, here are eight more things invented by whippersnappers (slideshow): http://www.mnn.com/leaderboard/photos/8-brilliant-everyday-things-invented-by-kids/children-of-invention

Into the Wild

Antoine Bruy

From 2010 to 2013, a French photographer named Antoine Bruy traveled through the European countryside and took pictures of the people he met along the way who have chosen to live outside society ~ or who were born to those who made that choice (story, photographs, link to artist's website): http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/antoine-bruy-scrublands

Serpents in Love

screen shot

Once a year, in the Narcisse Snake Dens of Manitoba, Canada, the garter snakes come out to mate. The trouble, as far as the masses of males are concerned, is that there are relatively few females around. On the other hand, there are lots of humans crowding the boardwalks above them, eager to watch the largest gathering of snakes in the world (story, video): http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/06/140626-snakes-narcisse-animals-mating-sex-animals-world/

Is It Déjà War All Over Again?

Tom Bachtell/The New Yorker

On the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I (you may remember it as "the Great War," "the war to end all wars," or "the war to end war"), there are those who find the state of things now to be eerily reminiscent of the state of things leading up to that crisis. The question these days seems to be whether the fuse will be lit in the Middle East or in Asia: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/is-it-1914-all-over-again-we-are-in-danger-of-repeating-the-mistakes-that-started-wwi-says-a-leading-historian-9039184.html

   There are those who find such speculation not only wrong but downright dangerous: http://www.spectator.co.uk/australia/australia-features/9158871/2014-wont-be-like-1914/

   And then, there are those who contend that, in many ways, what we are witnessing now is but a continuation of that long-ago conflict: http://somanyinterestingthings.blogspot.com/2014/01/war-without-end.html

Ah, Yes, I Remember It Well

Doing a little research on my post headlines, I saw that I had forgotten that I had used the same headline on remembering twice before (http://somanyinterestingthings.blogspot.com/2012/03/you-must-remember-this_26.html, http://somanyinterestingthings.blogspot.com/2014/01/you-must-remember-this.html) and so had used it a third time (http://somanyinterestingthings.blogspot.com/2014/03/you-must-remember-this.html ~ all very interesting articles, btw). Clearly, I can use the advice in this excerpt, courtesy of delanceyplace.com:

Today's encore selection -- from Moonwalking With Einstein by Joshua Foer. The individuals with the most prodigious memories, those that win the United States and World Memory Championships, use a technique called the "method of loci" or "memory palace." Since the human brain is highly adept at remembering spaces and images, they simply visualize a house or palace, and visually place each item on a path through the house -- using a highly unusual and memorable visual association for each item. Then, to remember, they simply take a mental "walk" through the house on that same path and "see" each item they need to remember. It turns out that this "memory palace" technique was used by the greats of antiquity during times when -- because of the absence of the printing press and the internet -- memory was a much more highly honored ability:

"Virtually all the nitty-gritty details we have about classical memory training ... were first described in a short, anonymously authored Latin rhetoric textbook called the Rhetorica ad Herennium, written some­time between 86 and 82 B.C. ... The techniques introduced in the Ad Herennium were widely prac­ticed in the ancient world. In fact, in his own writings on the art of memory, Cicero says that the techniques are so well known that he felt he didn't need to waste ink describing them in detail. ... Once upon a time, ... memory train­ing was considered a centerpiece of classical education in the language arts, on par with grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Students were taught not

Puffins With Breakfast

screen shot

Now, here's a happy way to start the day ~ watching and waiting for a baby puffin to be born! (Word to the wise: Turn down your sound; it's pretty loud over there.) And if you get tired of waiting (sometimes, the mom's just sleeping, as is her right), there are always the Loafing Ledge and Boulder Berm to explore (live-streaming): http://explore.org/live-cams/player/puffin-burrow-cam

Electric Bug Bite

Just in time for summer, the great outdoors, and its inevitable natural annoyances (I did not know this, did you?), from wisegeek.com:

A common battery could be a cure for bug bites from insects that inject venom, and it has been found that placing a 9-volt battery onto a wet spider, bee, wasp or ant bite stops the pain in some cases. Research has shown that an electric current, such as from a common battery, has the ability to deactivate the venom, or toxic substance, released by snakes and certain insects. Wetting the bug bite might make the battery

The Joy of 6.28

xkcd

Unbeknownst to many, June 28 is a very important date on the calendar. Aside from being my wedding anniversary!, it is Tau Day. What is Tau Day? You might well ask, and the answer is that it's Pi Day's unfairly ignored stepsibling, according to its main booster, theoretical physicist and all-around geek Michael Hartl (http://www.michaelhartl.com/about). Hartl and other Tau supporters contend that using a circle's radius instead of its diameter, as Pi does, is much more natural, and therefore the obvious choice: http://tauday.com/tau-manifesto

The Good We Do

The Good Country Index put together by independent policy adviser Simon Anholt ranks countries by how much they help others in each of seven categories. Happily, the United States does not figure in the bottom 10 (the last-place slot is reserved for Libya). It does show up once in the top 10, in the "Health and Well-Being" category (maybe thanks to Warren Buffet and Bill Gates?). Can you guess which country is No. 1?: http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2014/06/daily-chart-18

Nuclear Numbers

What actually happens when inspectors go into a country to verify the existence or nonexistence of nuclear weapons? They can't examine the warheads themselves, so how can they know for sure? A new method involves what's known in mathematics as a zero-knowledge proof, basically a way of testing weapons without learning what's in them: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2014/06/25/a-new-way-to-verify-nuclear-weapons-with-math/#.U6soDqi5bgc