CAROLINA NATURALLY: May 16, 2016

Monday, May 16, 2016

The Daily Drift

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Today in History

1770		Marie Antoinette marries future King Louis XVI of France.
1863		At the Battle of Champion’s Hill, Union General Ulysess S. Grant repulses the Confederates, driving them into Vicksburg.
1868		President Andrew Johnson is acquitted during Senate impeachment, by one vote, cast by Edmund G. Ross.
1879		The Treaty of Gandamak between Russia and England sets up the Afghan state.
1920		Joan of Arc is canonized in Rome.
1928		The first Academy Awards are held in Hollywood.
1943		A specially trained and equipped Royal Air Force squadron destroys two river dams in Germany.
1951		Chinese Communist Forces launch second step, fifth-phase offensive and gain up to 20 miles of territory.
1960		A Big Four summit in Paris collapses because of the American U-2 spy plane affair.
1963		After 22 Earth orbits, Gordon Cooper returns to Earth, ending the last mission of Project Mercury.

Morley Safer says goodbye to CBS

Morley Safer says goodbye to CBS after 50 years

April was the warmest month ever recorded on Earth

Colorado Legalizes Rain Barrels

The state legalized recreational use of marijuana before a commonplace water conservation tool.

Insane bible-waving mom screams at Target customers

Bible-waving woman in Target (Screenshot/YouTube)

Jail For Arpaio

The Dumbest Thieves in Sweden

Two men try to rob a watch shop in Kista Galleria just outside Stockholm, Sweden. The store is closed, so they have to break in, but it’s an enclosed mall with plenty of people around, one who recorded the entire caper.

(YouTube link)

By the time they broke into the store, found some merchandise they could actually get to, and tried to make their getaway on a motorbike, they had an audience of shoppers and security personnel all waiting for them. Add to that the malfunctions of a gun and the bike, and you can understand why this video is going viral. Maybe they shouldn’t have chosen Friday the 13th to pull this off, although I can’t see it actually working on any other day, either.

Fake Jellyfish and Other (Fake) Chinese Delicacies

Fake Jellyfish and Other (Fake) Chinese Delicacies

The latest scandal highlights China's long history of lax food safety standards.

More Mexican Immigrants Are Returning to Mexico Than Coming to the U.S.

More Mexican Immigrants Are Returning to Mexico Than Coming to the U.S.

How Epic Fortunes Were Created During the California Gold Rush

Before the California Golf Rush, San Francisco had a population of about 500 people. There were no roads or bridges, and it took six months for goods to arrive by ship. The federal government had plans to build roads and railways, but those were long-term projects. The news of gold changed everything. In 1849 and 1850, one out of every 100 Americans traveled to California, nearly 200,000 people, dreaming of gold. Most of them didn’t find any, but they put San Francisco on the map. The people who really prospered from the Gold Rush were those who sold goods or services to all those newcomers. And they did it in many ways, some far away from California. Three men raised a million dollars to build a railway across Panama, which cut travel time from America’s East Coast to the West Coast in half.

The three men financing and constructing the Panama Railway knew very little about railroads, which is probably the only reason the railway was built. In the unfriendly Panamanian terrain, the men exhausted their capital in a year and laid only 7 miles of track. But the frenzied gold seekers saved the project.

The hundreds of thousands of people headed to California desired nothing more than speed. In 1851, a group of migrants asked to use the seven-mile track to speed their Panamanian crossing. The railroad owners realized they could profitably run trains on their unfinished railway, and the profits from the new passengers, along with new investment from Wall Street, paid for the $8 million construction project that still awes engineers to this day.

When the engineers hammered the last spike to finish the railway in 1855, the company had already been profitable for years. Soon it became the most highly valued company on the New York Stock Exchange. It took a small cut of the value of all cargo, and people returning from California took $500 million worth of gold on the railway in just 10 years.

Others became rich by providing tools, clothing, food, and entertainment for prospectors and miners. But the biggest fortunes were made by real estate speculators. Read about the fortunes that were made by non-miners during the Gold Rush at Pricenomics.

15th-Century Apocalypse Maps

National Geographic has a new blog on their science salon Phenomena called All Over the Map, dedicated to maps of all kinds. Check out the introductory post and then a look at medieval apocalypse maps.
People in 15th-century Europe were convinced the end was near. The Roman Empire had fallen, the Plague was running rampant, and the Holy Land was in the hands of the Ottoman Empire.

Dozens of printed works described the coming reckoning in gory detail, but one long-forgotten manuscript depicts the Apocalypse in a very different way—through maps. “It has this sequence of maps that illustrate each stage of what will happen,” says Chet Van Duzer, a historian of cartography who has written a book about the previously unstudied manuscript.
The geography is sketchy by modern standards, but the maps make one thing perfectly clear: If you’re a sinner, you’ve got nowhere to hide. The Antichrist is coming, and his four horns will reach the corners of the earth. And it just gets worse from there.

Read more about the apocalypse maps at Phenomena.

Climate Change May Have Finished Off Neanderthals

Climate Change May Have Finished Off Neanderthals

Colder climates may have created nutritional distress and helped kill off the Neanderthals 40,000 years ago.

Ancient Humans, Dogs Hunted Mastodon in Florida

Ancient Humans, Dogs Hunted Mastodon in Florida

The first Floridians were a hearty bunch that hunted big game, kept dogs and crafted sharp stone tools.

'Bone Crusher'

Dog Fossil Represents New Species of 'Bone Crusher'

A 12-million-year-old fossil unearthed in Maryland was a canid from a family with a strong bite.

Heroic Dog Saves Little Girl from Snake

Molly DeLuca of Tampa, Florida was in her backyard, watching her 7-year old granddaughter and Haus, her 2-year old German Shepherd, play. Suddenly, the dog reared up and leaped in front of the girl. Haus fought a diamondback rattlesnake that had sneaked into the yard and saved the little girl's life.
The snake bit Haus 3 times, almost killing him. Haus is now in intensive care for the severe kidney damage that he suffered from the venom. The AP reports:

The snake's venom damaged the dog's kidneys. Vets now expect a full recovery, but it won't be cheap: Each day in the ICU costs between $1000 to $1500, and each vial of anti-venom costs $618. Haus is averaging 4 or 5 vials per day as the poison leaves his system.

Fortunately, public recognition of Haus's heroics have led to overwhelming support for his GoFundMe project. He has received $35,000 after starting with a goal of $15,000.