The Daily Drift

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'Nuff Said ...! 

 

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Today in History

1537		Pope Paul III bans the enslavement of Indians in the New World.
1774		The Quartering Act, requiring American colonists to allow British soldiers into their houses, is reenacted.
1793		Maximilien Robespierre, a member of France’s Committee on Public Safety, initiates the “Reign of Terror.”
1818		The British army defeats the Maratha alliance in Bombay, India.
1859		French forces cross the Ticino River.
1865		At Galveston, Texas, Confederate general Edmund Kirby Smith surrenders the Trans-Mississippi Department to Union forces.
1883		The first baseball game under electric lights is played in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
1886		Grover Cleveland becomes the first American president to wed while in office.
1910		Charles Stewart Rolls, one of the founders of Rolls-Royce, becomes the first man to fly an airplane nonstop across the English Channel both ways. Tragically, he becomes Britain’s first aircraft fatality the following month when his biplane breaks up in midair.
1924		The United States grants full citizenship to American Indians.
1928		Nationalist Chiang Kai-shek captures Peking, China, in a bloodless takeover.
1942		The American aircraft carriers Enterprise, Hornet and Yorktown move into their battle positions for the Battle of Midway.
1944		Allied “shuttle bombing” of Germany begins, with bombers departing from Italy and landing in the Soviet Union.
1946		Italian citizens vote by referendum for a republic.
1948		Jamaican-born track star Herb McKenley sets a new world record for the 400 yard dash.
1953		Elizabeth II is crowned queen of England at Westminster Abbey.
1954		Senator Joseph McCarthy charges that there are communists working in the CIA and atomic weapons plants.
1969		The Australian aircraft carrier Melbourne slices the destroyer USS Frank E. Evans in half off the shore of South Vietnam.

New evidence supports/denies the "Solutrean hypothesis"

The Solutrean hypothesis:

The Solutrean hypothesis is a controversial proposal that peoples from Europe may have been among the earliest settlers in the Americas, as evidenced by similarities in stone tool technology of the Solutrean culture from prehistoric Europe to that of the later Clovis tool-making culture found in the Americas. It was first proposed in 1998. Its key proponents include Dennis Stanford, of the Smithsonian Institution, and Bruce Bradley, of the University of Exeter.

In this hypothesis, people associated with the Solutrean culture migrated from Ice Age Europe to North America, bringing their methods of making stone tools with them and providing the basis for later Clovis technology found throughout North America. The hypothesis rests upon particular similarities in Solutrean and Clovis technology that have no known counterparts in Eastern Asia, Siberia or Beringia, areas from which or through which early Americans are known to have migrated.

Today the Washington Post and The Independent have articles about new findings on the Atlantic coast of North America that support the Solutrean hypothesis.

At the core of Stanford’s case are stone tools recovered from five mid-Atlantic sites. Two sites lie on Chesapeake Bay islands, suggesting that the Solutreans settled Delmarva early on. Smithsonian research associate Darrin Lowery found blades, anvils and other tools found stuck in soil at least 20,000 years old [note only the soil can be reliably dated, not the artifacts themselves]...
Further, the Eastern Shore blades strongly resemble those found at dozens of Solutrean sites from the Stone Age in Spain and France, Stanford says. “We can match each one of 18 styles up to the sites in Europe.”..
Stone tools recovered from two other mid-Atlantic sites — Cactus Hills, Va., 45 miles south of Richmond, and Meadowcroft Rockshelter, in southern Pennsylvania — date to at least 16,000 years ago. Those tools, too, strongly resemble blades found in Europe...
“The reason people don’t like the Solutrean idea is the ocean,” he said. No Solutrean boats have been found. But given that people arrived in Australia some 60,000 years ago — and they didn’t walk there — wood-frame and seal-skin boats were clearly possible, Stanford argues... 

One major problem facing investigators is that early peoples would have lived on the coast next to the ocean - but sea levels have risen so far since that time that the original coast is perhaps 50 miles off the current shoreline and deep underwater.  Caves and artifacts from those locations are difficult to find.

Addendum:   We've updated this post (originally published in 2012) to add some items We've recently encountered - first, from Germany's Der Spiegel, reporting on DNA studies of North Americans:

Now a team of scientists led by the Danish geneticist Eske Willerslev has analyzed the boy's [Clovis-era, found in Montana] origins and discovered that he descends from a Siberian tribe with roots tracing back to Europe. Some of the boy's ancestors are likely even to have lived in present-day Germany.
Their findings go even further: More than 80 percent of all native peoples in the Americas -- from the Alaska's Aleuts to the Maya of Yucatan to the Aymaras along the Andes -- are descended from Montana boy's lineage.
Last week, the scientists published the results of sequencing the child's DNA in the scientific journal Nature. Late last year, the same team published the decoded genome of another early human: A juvenile buried near Lake Baikal in Siberia some 24,000 years ago. Their genomes showed surprising ancestral similarities.

This earned Willerslev's team an astounding publishing achievement in just 100 days: The decoding of the genomes of the oldest analyzed members of homo sapiens in both the Old and the New Worlds. This has allowed them to reconstruct the settlement of the Americas via the Beringia land bridge during the ice ages -- when what is now the Bering Strait between Russia and Alaska was frozen over -- in greater detail than ever before.

That report is discussed in a Reddit thread and summarized on the Wikipedia page, and at USA Today:

When researchers analyzed the Anzick child's DNA and compared it to the genomes of living Native Americans, they found that the boy's family members were the ancestors of multiple Central and South American groups, such as the Maya of Central America and the Karitiana people of Brazil. Willerslev estimates that roughly 80% of Native Americans are descended from the Anzick group, contradicting claims by other scholars that the Clovis people didn't leave much of a genetic legacy...
The results overturn the idea that migrants who colonized the Americas after the Clovis people are the true ancestors to Native Americans. And the discovery "puts the final nail in the coffin" for the idea that the ancestors of Native Americans may have crossed to the New World from Europe, says study author Ripan Malhi of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
With the genetic data, the researchers can construct a rough narrative of the peopling of the New World. From Siberia, ancient people gradually crossed a now-vanished land bridge to Alaska. Some drifted south, giving rise to the Clovis people and colonizing the United States and Central and South America. Others stayed in the north and founded the lineage leading to the modern-day Cree and Athabascan peoples of northern North America. The study is published in this week's Nature.

We have accordingly inserted "/denies" after "supports" in the post's title.

Addendum:  Reposted again, in part because this post has become one of the most-commented posts  and we'd like to have the current generation of readers be aware of it.  Mostly we wanted to add this information from a recent comment:

Just returned from a visit with Dr. Al Goodyear and his folks at "The Topper Site" in South Carolina. Documented, dated by the best available science, Pre-Clovis artifacts found at a Chert quarry have been robustly tested and are found to be 50,000 years old +. In fact, charcoal remnants so old that Radio Carbon dating is impossible found in the same layer have proven the case for human occupation at the site . It is ,in fact, a tool manufacturing site of the first magnitude, It is located on the banks of the Savannah River in S.C.. It is interesting to note that more Clovis and Pre-Clovis artifacts have now been found of the East coast of the U.S.A.than all of the rest of the country. I know not what this means, but it definitely means something. Dr. Goodyear will publish a definitive paper very soon, but his find (The Topper Site) has been visited and observed by many national and international academe professionals and many of the artifacts examined in situ and in the lab.

We'll have to await that "definitive paper" for details; I suspect it will encounter substantial resistance during the peer-review process.  The Wikipedia entry offers the standard counterarguments:

Goodyear, who began excavating the Topper site in the 1980s, believes that lithic objects at that level are rudimentary stone tools (and thus "artifacts"). Other archaeologists dispute this conclusion, suggesting that the objects are natural and not human-made. Other archaeologists also have challenged the radiocarbon dating of the carbonized remains at Topper...

A recent article on the Topper site was posted in Charleston's Post and Courier.

"Unifacial flake tools found at the top of the soil layer holding artifacts said to be 50,000 years old."

Burlesque dancer told she couldn't board flight because of too short shorts

A Seattle burlesque dancer was asked to change her clothes before boarding a flight from Boston back to Seattle. She says a JetBlue crew told her the outfit she was wearing was inappropriate. Maggie McMuffin was returning home from a performance on the east coast when the incident happened earlier this month. She was wearing a tiger sweater with striped black and white shorts and thigh-highs. She flew from New York to Boston on a JetBlue flight in that outfit with no problems. Yet on the second leg of her trip, from Boston to Seattle, she learned the flight crew in Boston had an issue with what she was wearing.

"A few minutes before boarding was set to start, the gate lead approached me and said there was a problem and that what I was wearing was not appropriate," said Maggie. "And they were hoping I could put something else on. And I informed them that I didn't have anything else. I had two small carry-ons with me, and they suggested I go buy something." The performer ran to a store in the airport terminal and purchased a pair of size extra-large women’s pyjama bottoms for “proper coverage” to continue her journey home. Since the incident, JetBlue has reimbursed McMuffin $22 for the cost of the pajama bottoms and offered her a $162 credit for a future JetBlue flight.

Still, she feels incredibly disrespected. "It was a nice gesture," she said. "But I don't really want to fly JetBlue again and they told me they couldn't give me a cash refund." A spokesperson for JetBlue said: "The gate and onboard crew discussed the customer's clothing and determined that the burlesque shorts may offend other families on the flight. While the customer was not denied boarding, the crew members politely asked if she could change. The customer agreed and continued on the flight without interruption. We support our crew members' discretion to make these difficult decisions." Maggie says she'd much rather have an apology and a more clear airline policy regarding passenger dress code.

YouTube link.

"If companies are going to seek action against people like me, they should clearly list their boundaries and their dress code," she said. "I think this seems like a small thing, but it's connected to a lot of larger things in our society, and it's something JetBlue really needs to analyze. They're not like burlesque shorts, they're just shorts," she said. "And it's obviously subjective. I've flown JetBlue before. I flew in that exact same outfit the same day, and also if they can rebook me on a different flight, that means it's not any type of company policy. It's very subjective." In this case, Maggie says she was told the flight crew discussed her outfit, and the pilot made the final call about how to handle it.

Smash Your Burgers!

Chefs have been telling us for years that you shouldn’t smash your burger patties in the frying pan because you’ll squeeze all the juices out. So then why do the chains Shake Shack and Smashburger do just that? Because when you do it right, the results are delicious. J. Kenji López-Alt developed a technique called the Food Lab’s Ultra-Smashed Cheeseburgers that I’m going to try out. 

…as Kenji points out in his cookbook opus The Food Lab, if you smash your burger once, decisively, as soon as it hits the hot skillet—while the meat and fat are still cold—there won't be any juices (yet) to lose. You'll maximize the points of contact with the raging hot pan, which is effectively like singeing a layer of caramelization and Maillard reaction goodness onto every last bit of surface area, so it all sears into a salty, beefy crust.

It might take a bit of practice to get it exactly right, but the number of cheeseburgers I have to eat to get there is just the kind of sacrifice I’m willing to make. Check out the recipe at Food52.

Sick at Work

Sick at Work: Staggering Number of Americans Go to Work With Bad Colds or Flu 

Here’s what Big Pharma doesn’t want you to know about the Opioid epidemic

Here’s what Big Pharma doesn’t want you to know about the Opioid epidemic

The Pharma-driven opioid epidemic may be as big a con as the mortgage housing bubble collapse.

Appeals court will not reconsider ruling backing trans Virginia teen's restroom choice

Appeals court will not reconsider ruling backing trans Virginia teen's restroom choice

Catholic Cult spent millions fighting NY bill that would allow sex abuse victims to sue attackers

Catholic Cult spent millions fighting NY bill that would allow sex abuse victims to sue attackers

Lunatic Evangelist Dobson laments the lack of transgender shooting victims in unhinged anti-Obama rant

Lunatic Evangelist Dobson laments the lack of transgender shooting victims in unhinged anti-Obama rant

The delusional diatribe, which was picked up on Wing Nut Daily, detailed Dobson’s beliefs that use of bathroom facilities by “the opposite sex” now demand that 'christian' manhood assert itself to stop the practice.

***

"Christian Manhood" - now that is a misnomer if there ever was one ...

Wingnut Utah sheriffs threaten to arrest federal agents over bizarre conspiracy theories

Wingnut Utah sheriffs threaten to arrest federal agents over bizarre conspiracy theories

“There is an agenda — and don’t kid yourself — there’s an agenda to get rid of the grazing, there’s an agenda to shut down our roads,” said Garfield County Sheriff James “Danny” Perkins.

Judge orders Arpaio to pay detainees in racial profiling case

Judge orders Arpaio to pay detainees in racial profiling case — but delays contempt ruling

U.S. District Judge Murray Snow said those who were detained by deputies solely on suspicion of being in the country illegally should be paid $1,000 for the first hour of detention and $200 for every 20 minutes thereafter.

Alabama teacher busted for assigning ‘math test’ based on 30-year-old racist meme

Alabama teacher busted for assigning ‘math test’ based on 30-year-old racist meme

The unidentified teacher assigned their class at Burns Middle School a version of a document known online as the “L.A. Math Proficiency Test.”

An expert explains why domestic extremists are a much bigger risk than foreign terrorists in America

An expert explains why domestic extremists are a much bigger risk than foreign terrorists in America

An expert on extremism sees parallels between the rhetoric of Dumbass Trump's wingnut cabal and that used to mobilize violence in Iraq and Kenya.

"Dead man's fingers"

Neither fingers nor art, these projections come from Xylaria polymorpha, a saprobic fungus.

It is a common inhabitant of forest and woodland areas, usually growing from the bases of rotting or injured tree stumps and decaying wood. It has also been known to colonize substrates like woody legume pods, petioles, and herbaceous stems. It is characterized by its elongated upright, clavate, or strap-like stromata poking up through the ground, much like fingers.

And the subtle distinction between "saprobes" and the more familiar word "saprophytes" -

Saprotrophic nutrition or lysotrophic nutrition is a process of chemoheterotrophic extracellular digestion involved in the processing of dead or decayed organic matter. It occurs in saprotrophs or heterotrophs, and is most often associated with fungi (for example Mucor) and soil bacteria. Saprotrophic microscopic fungi are sometimes called saprobes; saprotrophic plants or bacterial flora are called saprophytes (sapro- + -phyte, "rotten material" + "plant").

Fox News Goes Completely Racist When Reporting Dead Gorilla Story

Fox News Goes Completely Racist When Reporting Dead Gorilla Story

Last weekend, news feeds everywhere were filled with the horrific story of a beautiful silverback gorilla being shot after a 3-year-old boy fell into his...

Confused Rush Limbaugh thinks evolution is a hoax because Cincinnati gorilla never became human

Confused Rush Limbaugh thinks evolution is a hoax because Cincinnati gorilla never became human

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The mental degenerate lost it long ago.

Florida Golf Course Hazard

Charlie Helms was golfing with friends at the Buffalo Creek Golf Course in Palmetto, Florida, when a large alligator walked across the fairway. How large was it? “Dave, get next to it for perspective!”

(YouTube link)

It’s a monster, but not unknown to the staff. A pro shop clerk said he’s between 15 and 16 feet long, and owned by Manatee County. He’s their course mascot. That’s kind of like having a dinosaur casually hang around for tourists to take pictures with.

Why You Should Never Turn Your Back On A Big Cat

Big cats like tigers and cheetahs are popular among the pet collecting crowd, but these apex predators don't change their killer ways no matter how long they're kept in captivity and often turn on their captors.
Which is why Tampa, Florida's Big Cat Rescue felt compelled to create this video showing what happens when you turn your back on a big cat.

(YouTube Link)

It's funny to see the cats come stalking up behing him then act like "what? I'm not doing anything..." when he turns around, but this video wouldn't be so funny without that sturdy fence.

Animal Pictures