1775: America Builds Its First Submarine

Even before there was a United States, the American people were innovators in military technology. David Bushnell, a Connecticut supporter of the rebellion against British rule, designed and built the roughly spherical ship Turtle in 1775. It was the first submarine in naval history to see combat.

Bushnell’s ship was a technological wonder of its time. It was the first submarine to use water as ballast. The pilot could control water flow into the bilges with a foot pedal and then make finer adjustments to the depth level with a vertical screw. A forward-mounted screw pulled the submarine through the water.
The pilot had enough air to keep breathing for half an hour. But he also had a snorkel that gave him access to fresh air when surfaced. It closed automatically when the vessel submerged.
The Turtle was equipped with a time bomb which could be detonated underwater—again, an invention that Bushnell devised. His plan was that the pilot of the submarine would drive a screw into the wooden hull of an enemy ship. The bomb would be attached to the screw. The pilot could then escape before the bomb detonated.

After Bushnell completed the Turtle in the fall of 1775, he planned to use it to break the British blockade of Boston. But the British abandoned Boston in March of 1776, so Bushnell decided to put his invention to work against Royal Navy vessels in New York harbor. General George Washington took a keen interest in the project and assigned Sgt. Ezra Lee to pilot the Turtle.
On the night of Sept. 6, 1776, an American ship towed the Turtle out into the harbor. Lee submerged the Turtle and proceeded to HMS Eagle, the British flagship. Lee tried to attach the bomb, but it would not connect to the hull of the Eagle. Eventually, he cut it loose. The bomb floated away and detonated in a huge but harmless explosion.
Bushnell tried two other times to use the Turtle, but these were also unsuccessful. On October 6, the British sank the American ship carrying the Turtle and the submarine never saw action again. The project was a failure, but it inspired the imaginations of military leaders. Reflecting on the project in 1785, Washington wrote in a letter to Thomas Jefferson that “I then thought, and still think, that it was an effort of genius.”
Bonus item: the first submarine to sink another vessel in combat was the Hunley, a submarine of the Confederate Navy.

Disaster Centennial

The Disturbing Relevance of World War I

by Klaus Wiegrefe

It has now been 100 years since the outbreak of World War I, but the European catastrophe remains relevant today. As the Continent looks back this year, old wounds could once again be rubbed raw.

 More. 

• Photo Gallery: Europe's Great Conflagration

Snapshots Of Life Aboard Hospital Trains In WWI

Hospital trains during World War I enabled medical personnel to tend to ill and injured servicemen on their way to hospital. Though conditions were more crowded and sometimes less hygienic on the trains than in brick-and-mortar hospitals, nurses and doctors could provide vital treatment to soldiers, no doubt saving countless lives.

Here are ten snapshots of life aboard hospital trains in WWI.

Norwegian Brides And Their Stunning Headgear 1870-1920

A collection from 1870 to 1920 showing some photos of Norwegian brides. The pictures are to be found in the Norsk Folkemuseum, Oslo. Subtlety was neither aimed for nor achieved with these bonny bonnets.

Random Photos

Geyser In Subzero Temperature In Iceland

A geyser in Iceland during record cold looks like liquid nitrogen.

YouTube link

Frostquakes

People in Canada have reported large booming sounds that didn't lead to any explosives. What they are hearing are "frostquakes," which is kind of like an earthquake, but produced by the cold weather.

Known to experts as cryoseisms, frostquakes happen when moisture that has seeped into the ground freezes very quickly. It expands and builds up pressure, causing the frozen soil or rock near the surface to crack, emitting a sound that people have likened to a sonic boom.

They're not very common because they require such a rapid change in temperature. In southern Ontario, a drop from 5C (41F) to about -20C (-4F) was preceded by an ice storm, which ensured there was a lot of moisture in the ground that became ice.

That doesn't happen every year, says Geoff Coulson of Environment Canada, who says the term "frostquake" is new to him. It's like a very weak earthquake and the house might shake but there is hardly ever significant damage, he says, and it will only be felt or heard within a kilometre (0.6 miles) at most.

Where I live, we had rain and then snow with rapidly-falling temperatures (below zero now), but if I heard a big boom, I would just assume it's the nearby railroad. Read more about frostquakes at BBC News.

The Rock Of Guatapé

La Piedra Del Peñol, or the Rock of Guatapé, is a massive rock located in the town and municipality of Guatapé, in Antioquia, Colombia. The 10 million-ton rock rises 200 meters from the surrounding plain, visible from miles around the countryside.

The top of the Rock of Guatapé consists of a small fenced in area with stalls for buying souvenirs, and a viewing platform. Food vendors have laid out outdoor tables where you can enjoy snacks with a bottle of beer taking in the outstanding vista that stretch to the horizon in every direction.

Daily Comic Relief

Prehistoric Shark Nursery Found at Illinois Nuke Plant

by Jennifer Viegas

This long-snouted shark called Bandringa was one of the earliest close relatives of all modern sharks.
The earliest shark nursery containing fossils of both young sharks and eggs has been found at the site of a nuclear power plant in northeastern Illinois.
The nursery, once located at what is now Mazon Creek at the Braidwood Nuclear Generating Station site, dates to 310 million years ago, according to a paper published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. It used to be teeming with a long-snouted shark called Bandringa, which was one of the earliest close relatives of all modern sharks.
"At least a dozen juvenile Bandringa shark fossils -- and probably more -- have been recovered from the site," University of Michigan paleontologist Lauren Sallan, who co-authored the paper with Michael Coates, told Discovery News.

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Weirdest Sharks in the Sea!

The ocean is a strange and scary place. And few ocean animals are scarier than sharks!

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Some of the fossils are in a remarkable state of preservation.
"We even have soft body tissue from the juvenile sharks," Sallan said, adding that the tissue retains pigment that, in the future, could reveal the precise coloration of the sharks. DNA could probably not be extracted from it, though.
The paleontologists studied the fossils, along with those of 12 adult Bandringas. This shark was previously classified into two species, but the researchers determined that all of the fossils belonged to just one species. The scientists also gained a more complete picture of the extinct shark's anatomy and distinctive features.
"Bandringa had a head entirely covered in large spines, a long paddle-like rostrum (snout) with electroreceptors, and one of the earliest jaws capable of protruding and suction feeding," Sallan said.
It resembled present-day sawfish and paddlefish. The huge snout took up half of its body length. The electroreceptors on the snout helped the sharks to locate prey, which consisted of small crustaceans and other marine life.
Juveniles were 4 to 6 inches long. They grew into adults of up to 10 feet long.

Missing monkey wins zoo's beauty contest

A missing monkey has won a beauty contest at the Takasakiyama Natural Zoo monkey park in Oita, Japan. In a poll among park visitors  a monkey named Bentsu collected 518 of the 2,637 votes cast.

At an estimated 35 years of age, Bentsu is more than 100 years old in human terms, making him the oldest among the 16 contestants. A park official said the victorious monkey has been missing since Dec. 16. “It's too bad he's missing, but we want people to recognize him as a manly monkey,” the official said.

The monkeys taking part in the contest were from two troops, groups B and C, of wild monkeys that feed at Takasakiyama Natural Zoo, located in a forested area at the foot of Mt. Takasaki. More than 1,000 monkeys live there. Bentsu, the boss of Group C, scored an overwhelming victory with a margin of 187 votes over second-place finisher Zorome, who is ranked No. 2 in Group C.
Bentsu previously went missing in September but returned to his leadership position in Group C after being discovered in a residential area of the city. He disappeared again in mid-December. The park conducted its third search for the monkey on Saturday. The results of the contest were released on Friday.

Diamond from £18,000 wedding ring recovered after being swallowed by trainee police dog

A woman had the diamond from her £18,000 wedding ring eaten by a trainee police dog, but recovered it two days later. Jack chewed up Angie Collins's wedding ring and swallowed the diamond. It took Mrs Collins, who looks after police puppies being trained, two days of waiting and sieving Jack's faeces before the diamond appeared. Mrs Collins, 51, from Exmouth in Devon, said: "I thought it was futile. But the sun was shining, and there it was." Mrs Collins had left her ring on a side table while she manicured her nails. "It must have winked at him," she said. "I went to the kitchen, came back and it was gone."

The ring was a mangled mess on the floor but the diamond was nowhere to be found, despite a frantic search by Mrs Collins and husband Graham. "My husband and I emptied the entire room bit by bit which took hours. I could only conclude that Jack had eaten it," she said. "The vet said because a dog's stomach is so intricate it was unlikely I would get it back."
But she was undeterred. "As a dog walker you always keep your pet's 'poop' in a bag so I took it home and sprayed it with the hose pipe and sieved it every single day - four times a day at least, Mrs Collins said. She said she found the ring in the third lot of dog mess she looked through. "I had almost given up, so it was the last shot," said Mrs Collins who has been walking police dogs for 18 years.

Blind dog back home after being rescued from bay by police boat

A blind dog named Frankie is back with his family after he was found swimming in Biscayne Bay, Miami. A Marine Patrol officer rescued him on Monday morning. Johanne Poirier spotted the little dog swimming from her home in the Venetian Islands. She and her husband tried to coax him onto shore.

Animal Pictures

The Daily Drift

Ahem  ...

Carolina Naturally is read in 194 countries around the world daily.
 

That reminds me - Honey, where are my socks  ... !

Today is - National Static Electricity Day
 

Don't forget to visit our sister blog: It Is What It Is

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Miguel Hidalgo, Mexico City and Mexicali, Mexico

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Today in History

1719		Philip V of Spain declares war on France.
1776		Thomas Paine publishes Common Sense, a scathing attack on King George III's reign over the colonies and a call for complete independence.
1792		The Ottomans sign a treaty with the Russians ending a five year war.
1793		Jean Pierre Blanchard makes the first balloon flight in North America.
1861		Southern shellfire stops the Union supply ship Star of the West from entering Charleston Harbor on her way to Fort Sumter.
1861		Mississippi secedes from the Union.
1908		Count Zeppelin announces plans for his airship to carry 100 passengers.
1909		A Polar exploration team lead by Ernest Shackleton reaches 88 degrees, 23 minutes south longitude, 162 degrees east latitude. They are 97 nautical miles short of the South Pole, but the weather is too severe to continue.
1912		Colonel Theodore Roosevelt announces that he will run for president if asked.
1915		Pancho Villa signs a treaty with the United States, halting border conflicts.
1924		Ford Motor Co. stock is valued at nearly $1 billion.
1943		Soviet planes drop leaflets on the surrounded Germans in Stalingrad requesting their surrender with humane terms. The Germans refuse.
1945		U.S. troops land on Luzon, in the Philippines, 107 miles from Manila.
1947		French General Leclerc breaks off all talks with Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh.
1952		Jackie Robinson becomes the highest paid player in Brooklyn Dodger history.
1964		U.S. forces kill six Panamanian students protesting in the canal zone.
1974		Cambodian Government troops open a drive to avert insurgent attack on Phnom Penh.
1992		The Assembly of the Serb People in Bosnia and Herzegovina proclaims the creation of a new state within Yugoslavia, the Rupublika Srpska.
1996		A raid by Chechen separatists in the city of Kizlyar turns into a hostage crisis involving thousands of civilians.
2005		Mahmoud Abbas wins election to replace Yasser Arafat as President of the Palestinian National Authority.
2005		The Comprehensive Peace Agreement to end the Second Sudanese Civil War is signed by the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement.
2007		Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, unveils the first iPhone.

Non Sequitur

Design revealed for Oklahoma Capitol's Satan statue

A NYC group called the Satanic Temple hopes to install a 7-foot statue of Baphomet at the Oklahoma State Capitol building. They've just revealed their design, seen above.   

From Oklahoma's NewsOn6:

The Satanic Temple says Oklahoma's decision to put a ten commandments monument at the Capitol opened the door for its statute. Temple spokesman Lucien Greaves says it's moving forward with plans to have its monument approved, despite the Oklahoma Capitol Preservation Commission's decision to place a moratorium on new requests.
The commission says it's waiting until a lawsuit over the ten commandments has been settled.

Satanists Unveil Design For Oklahoma Capitol Monument

Did you know ...

That a woman sues because of invasive body cavity searches

Why we must expand social security

About fucking climate change deniers:  How do they work?

That dolphins like to get high

Alan Grayson says it all ...

repugican Agenda 2014

Dear John:

A few weeks ago, the repugicans unveiled their 2014 agenda, and it was . . . nothing.

I kid you not. Here is how it was reported in Politico:

"Last Thursday, a group of House repugicans filed into Majority Leader Eric Cantor's Capitol office suite and received a blank piece of paper labeled 'Agenda 2014.' . . . A repugican aide . . . said . . . 'The problem is we don't know where we are headed . . . .'"

Many people saw the absence of an agenda as a problem. I think that it understates the problem. My concern is that the repugicans don't know where to go, not that they don't know how to get there.

To give you an idea of where they seem to think we should go, here are some actual bills that were actually introduced by actual repugicans last year:r

• a bill to allow the states to nullify any federal law (didn't we settle that in 1865?);
• a bill to require every high school student to read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (mandatory libertarian indoctrination -- oh, the irony . . . .);
• a bill to prohibit lap dancing and jello wrestling (which contained fascinating definitions of the terms "nudity" and "sexual device");
• a bill establishing a state religion (not Islam, that's for sure); and
• a bill authorizing restaurants, hotels, hair salons and other businesses to deny service to gay customers.

If you're trying to do stuff like that, then doing nothing is a massive improvement.

But more importantly, you just can't do nothing about nothing. You're always doing nothing about something. When the repugicans say that they have no agenda for 2014, then in effect, they're saying this:

"We're going to do nothing about the 20 million Americans who can't find full-time work."

"We're going to do nothing about the fact that America now has the highest inequality of wealth in history."

"We're going to do nothing about the fact that our military expenditures are roughly equal to that of every other country combined, even though we face no conceivable threat of invasion, and we spend approximately $50 billion spying largely on ourselves."

"We're going to do nothing about the fact that the United States has run a trade deficit of at least $350,000,000,000.00 every single year since 2000, with no end in sight."

"We're going to do nothing about the fact that the Arctic ice cap is disappearing, the release of methane greenhouse gas from tundra is snowballing ('snowballing' - hah!), and global temperatures may rise by 10 degrees by the end of the century."

"We're going to do nothing about the fact that there are so many corporate income tax loopholes that corporate tax revenue is at its lowest in 50 years."

"We're going to do nothing about the fact that according to some tests, American students have the lowest math scores in the entire world."

"We're going to do nothing about the fact that 434 out of 435 House Members and 99 out of 100 Senators raised most of their campaign funds from big donors [the only exceptions being Sen. Sanders (I-VT) and moi]."

"We're going to nothing about the fact that the federal minimum wage buys less today than it did in 1968, and the bottom 20% has a far lower household income today than it did in 1999."

"After we repeal Obamacare, we're going to do nothing about the 50 million Americans who can't see a doctor when they're sick." [The repugican healthcare plan: Don't Get Sick. And if you do get sick, Die Quickly.]

So it may seem that the repugicans are doing nothing about nothing. But they're actually doing nothing about everything. Whatever the problems we face, their infantile solution is always the same: close your eyes, and it will go away. Close your eyes, stick your fingers in your ears, and repeat "La-la-la-la-la-la-la."

Will that work? No. All of these problems have solutions, but none of them is going to solve itself.

That's our job.

Courage,

Rep. Alan Grayson

“Nothing from nothing leaves nothing.
You've got to have something if you want to be with me.”

- Billy Preston, “Nothing From Nothing” (1974).

How gullible are wingnuts?

You Won’t Believe What Had to be Fact-Checked

by Allen Clifton

 

I get that wingnuts hate President Obama.  Heck, I live in Texas — he’s despised by nearly every wingnut I encounter here.  It’s caused me to avoid political discussions in public.  You’d think that doing what I do for a living I’d talk politics all the time, but that’s not the case in my private life.  Whenever a wingnut I meet finds out what I do, I usually avoid discussing politics if possible.  I’ve been down that road before and it’s just not worth the headache.
The asinine “facts” I’ve seen these people spew are often so ridiculous I can’t even properly respond to them because I’m trying not to laugh.  “Did you know Obamacare requires microchips in every American?”  Who honestly would believe such nonsense?
Well, while checking out Politifact, I ran across what might be the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen them fact-check.  Now I’m not exactly sure what their process is for investigating something, but I’m guessing it requires quite a few inquiries about a particular situation before they take the time to investigate the claim and write their article displaying their results.
So when I saw that they fact-checked a claim that “Obamacare” coding would lead to executions by beheading in the United States – I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Not that some idiots believed this (when you’ve seen as many ridiculous “facts” uttered by wingnuts about “Obamacare” over the years, nothing surprises you anymore) but the fact that it was believed by so many people that Politifact took the time to fact-check it was the laughable part.
For the record, it was deemed a “Pants on Fire” lie — their harshest rating for factually inaccurate information.
Granted, I’ve seen wingnut friends and family post some really crazy things on Facebook that they believed to be true, but I can’t even wrap my mind around the idea that there were enough people who believed “Obamacare” allowed for execution by beheadings in the United States.  I’ll admit that shocked the hell out of me.
As a liberal, if I read something with a headline that radical (even if it supports my side of the argument), red flags instantly go off inside my head.  The first thing I do is Google the headline and see if any credible sources have reported anything about it.  Then I go to the article itself to see what source they used.   Then, if there’s even a source, I see where the source got their information — which more often than not isn’t cited or sourced at all.  It’s just some blog filled with all sorts of lunatic fringe radical articles with no factual basis whatsoever.
It just goes to show how blind many wingnuts are when it comes to the Affordable Care Act.  They’ve been programmed to hate the health care law to such an extent that most of them will believe just about any nonsense that flies across their TV screen, computer or smart phone.  But seriously, beheadings?  Absurd doesn’t even begin to properly describe that level of insanity.

Well, repugicans they just can't help themselves

Get this: repugican AGs defending Obamacare against Obama?

There really isn't a more perfect example of repugican Obama derangement syndrome than this, repugican attorneys general defending Obamacare against President Obama. Yes, the only thing they hate more than this law is the president.

Idaho is now among several states challenging how President Obama decided to let consumers keep their insurance plans this year even if those plans don't meet requirements set by the 2010 health care reform law.

Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden and 10 other attorneys general called the proposed rule "flatly illegal under federal constitutional and statutory law," in a letter last week [pdf] to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

So at the same time repugicans are raising hell over cancelled health insurance policies, they're raising hell over the administration's fix for cancelled insurance policies. Perfect repugican logic.

NSA: a threat to national security

In an excellent editorial, Bruce Schneier explains how the NSA weakens American security (because the NSA relies upon weaknesses in American technology to permit it to spy) without stopping terrorism (by General Keith Alexander's own admission, the only plot foiled by bulk NSA spying was a plan by a guy in San Diego to send $8500 to some Somali militants).

It's not just domestic abuse we have to worry about; it's the rest of the world, too. The more we choose to eavesdrop on the Internet and other communications technologies, the less we are secure from eavesdropping by others. Our choice isn't between a digital world where the NSA can eavesdrop and one where the NSA is prevented from eavesdropping; it's between a digital world that is vulnerable to all attackers, and one that is secure for all users.
Fixing this problem is going to be hard. We are long past the point where simple legal interventions can help. The bill in Congress to limit NSA surveillance won't actually do much to limit NSA surveillance. Maybe the NSA will figure out an interpretation of the law that will allow it to do what it wants anyway. Maybe it'll do it another way, using another justification. Maybe the FBI will do it and give it a copy. And when asked, it'll lie about it.
NSA-level surveillance is like the Maginot Line was in the years before World War II: ineffective and wasteful. We need to openly disclose what surveillance we have been doing, and the known insecurities that make it possible. We need to work toward security, even if other countries like China continue to use the Internet as a giant surveillance platform. We need to build a coalition of free-world nations dedicated to a secure global Internet, and we need to continually push back against bad actors—both state and non-state—that work against that goal.

How the NSA Threatens National Security

Random Celebrity Photos

Marilyn Monroe  (1945)

Device found on New York-bound plane forces emergency landing in Kansas City

An American Airlines flight made an emergency landing in Kansas City after a passenger left a USB flash drive in the bathroom. The FBI now says the device was taped to the bathroom ventilation duct and contained a small camera.

Car exploded after men sniffing lighter fuel lit cigarette

A car exploded after liquid gas from a cigarette lighter ignited when a man inside lit a cigarette.

Police said two young Arab men were sniffing the liquid gas in their car in Ajman in the United Arab Emirates when the explosion happened. A police official said pressurized liquid gas used in filling a lighter had accumulated in the car when the two men were snorting it to get intoxicated.

Lt-Col Khalid Mohammed Al Nuaimi, Chief of the Nuaimiya Police Station, said the duo admitted to sniffing the inflammable gas, saying they were addicted to it. “The car burst into flames after one of the two men lit a cigarette,” he said.
Lt-Col Al Nuaimi said the mishap took place at about 1am on Sunday. “The car caught fire, following which the two men managed to escape. They sustained minor burn injuries and were shifted to Khalifa Hospital for treatment and medical care. They are in a stable condition now,” he said.

USFWS proposes dropping 1.3 tons of rat poison into National Wildlife Refuge

Maggie Sergio shares US Fish and Wildlife Service plans to drop 1.3 tons of rat poison onto the Farallon Islands to kill non-native mice. The mice are attracting threatened owls who also eat endangered petrel chicks. Says Maggie, "As I read the document I couldn't believe what was being contemplated. USFWS wants to use helicopters to drop 1.3 metric tons of brodifacoum (in the form of loose rat poison pellets) over the Farallon Islands, an area that has been designated as a National Wildlife Refuge. Nonnative mice are the issue."

Before Street Lights, There Were Moonlight Towers

(New Orleans moonlight tower, c. 1882)

Before the United States became widely electrified, it was not practical to build individual street lights in many cities. That’s why some cities built “moonlight towers,” which were enormous carbon arc lamps rising hundreds of feet into the air and projecting light as far as 1,500 feet away.

(Detroit moonlight tower, c. 1900-1910).

They were called moonlight towers because their enormous lights served to replace the light of an obscured moon. They were useful, but ultimately not as practical as the street lights which replaced them. These provided more consistent illumination than moonlight towers, which could not illuminate any area blocked by a building. Changing the carbon rods could also be difficult.

Austin, Texas, though, still retains and lights 17 of the original 31 moonlight towers that it began erecting in 1895.

Ziggy

Are gifted children getting lost in the shuffle?

Are gifted children getting lost in the shuffle?

Gifted children are likely to be the next generation’s innovators and leaders—yet the exceptionally smart are often invisible in the classroom, lacking the curricula, teacher input and external motivation to reach full potential. This conclusion […]

Reading creates changes in your brain — and that's a problem for neuroscience

At the Brain Watch blog, Christian Jarrett explains why that "reading a novel changes your brain" study really matters. Turns out, it has big implications for neuroscience. Not because it proves reading makes you smarter or anything, but because it demonstrates flaws in a fundamental assumption of most neuroscience research — that the "resting state" of your brain represents a neutral zone that you can easily compare to what happens when you do a given activity.

What does it tell you when someone says "I don't believe in evolution"?

Maybe not what you think, says Dan Kahan, a professor of law and psychology at Yale. In an interesting piece about the findings of a new Pew survey, he makes a case for why saying you don't believe in evolution isn't necessarily a sign of being anti-science, and points out how belief in evolution isn't as clearly broken down along political party lines as you might guess.

The oldest known decimal multiplication table would not have been terribly convenient to carry around

It's made of 21 half-meter-long strips of bamboo that were preserved for 2500 years in a tomb.

Random Photos

Eating nuts caused tooth decay in hunter-gatherers

Eating nuts and acorns may have helped hunter-gatherers survive 15,000 years ago in northern Africa but the practice wreaked havoc on their teeth, researchers said Monday. Eating nuts caused tooth decay in hunter-gatherers

Eating nuts caused tooth decay in hunter-gatherers Posted by TANN Anthropology, ArchaeoHeritage, Breakingnews, Early Humans, Forensics, Morocco 4:00 PM Eating nuts and acorns may have helped hunter-gatherers survive 15,000 years ago in northern Africa but the practice wreaked havoc on their teeth, researchers said Monday. Eating nuts caused tooth decay in hunter-gatherers From a site in Morocco and dated to more than 14,000 years old, these teeth are riddled with cavities and other signs of oral disease that may been been caused by eating nuts and acorns [Credit: Isabelle De Groote] Fermented carbohydrates in the nuts caused cavities, tooth decay and bad breath, said the study led by British scientists in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a US journal. The findings offer the earliest evidence of nut harvesting and storage among African hunter-gatherers, and are based on dozens of hole-riddled dental remains found in Morocco's Taforalt Cave. Dental woes have long been believed to originate in later farming cultures some 10,000 years ago, when people began eating processed foods on a wide scale. Toothaches were presumed rare among hunter-gatherers. But this research suggests they arose earlier than previously thought by several thousand years. The study pointed to an "exceptionally high prevalence of caries," or dental disease, found in 51 percent of teeth among the adult remains. That is far higher than the rate of tooth decay generally seen in hunter-gatherers, which has ranged from zero to 14 percent, and much closer to the level seen in prehistoric farmers, said the study. "The majority of the people's mouths were affected by both cavities in the teeth and abscesses," said co-author Isabelle DeGroote of Liverpool John Moores University. "They would have suffered from frequent tooth ache and bad breath." The latest analysis was done on a total of 52 adults whose remains were found in the 1950s as well as during more recent excavations that were begun in 2003. Scientists used accelerator mass spectrometry to date the remains and potent microscopes to identify the fossils of plant material which included acorns, pine nuts, juniper berries, pistachios and wild oats. There were so many remnants of acorns that researchers came to the conclusion that they must have been harvested and stored for eating as a staple food all year long. Long esparto grasses were also identified in the excavation, and were likely used to weave baskets for carrying nuts, storing them and even cooking them, the study said. "This is the first time we have documented this set of behaviors in the Iberomaurusian," a distant culture that thrived in the Maghreb, said lead author Louise Humphrey of The Natural History Museum of London, in an email to AFP. "It is the earliest documented evidence of systematic exploitation of wild plant resources in hunter-gatherers from Africa." Iberomaurusian people inhabited Taforalt some 13,000 to 15,000 years ago. They are described as "complex hunter-gatherers" who performed elaborate burials of their dead, used grindstones to prepare food and engaged in harvesting and storage of wild nuts, the study said.

Read more at: http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2014/01/eating-nuts-caused-tooth-decay-in.html#.Usw2YrRlguw
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From a site in Morocco and dated to more than 14,000 years old, these teeth are riddled with cavities and other signs of oral disease that may been been caused by eating nuts and acorns 

Fermented carbohydrates in the nuts caused cavities, tooth decay and bad breath, said the study led by British scientists in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a US journal. The findings offer the earliest evidence of nut harvesting and storage among African hunter-gatherers, and are based on dozens of hole-riddled dental remains found in Morocco's Taforalt Cave.
Dental woes have long been believed to originate in later farming cultures some 10,000 years ago, when people began eating processed foods on a wide scale. Toothaches were presumed rare among hunter-gatherers.
But this research suggests they arose earlier than previously thought by several thousand years.
The study pointed to an "exceptionally high prevalence of caries," or dental disease, found in 51 percent of teeth among the adult remains. That is far higher than the rate of tooth decay generally seen in hunter-gatherers, which has ranged from zero to 14 percent, and much closer to the level seen in prehistoric farmers, said the study. "The majority of the people's mouths were affected by both cavities in the teeth and abscesses," said co-author Isabelle DeGroote of Liverpool John Moores University. "They would have suffered from frequent tooth ache and bad breath."
The latest analysis was done on a total of 52 adults whose remains were found in the 1950s as well as during more recent excavations that were begun in 2003.
Scientists used accelerator mass spectrometry to date the remains and potent microscopes to identify the fossils of plant material which included acorns, pine nuts, juniper berries, pistachios and wild oats. There were so many remnants of acorns that researchers came to the conclusion that they must have been harvested and stored for eating as a staple food all year long.
Long esparto grasses were also identified in the excavation, and were likely used to weave baskets for carrying nuts, storing them and even cooking them, the study said. "This is the first time we have documented this set of behaviors in the Iberomaurusian," a distant culture that thrived in the Maghreb, said lead author Louise Humphrey of The Natural History Museum of London, in an email,. "It is the earliest documented evidence of systematic exploitation of wild plant resources in hunter-gatherers from Africa." Iberomaurusian people inhabited Taforalt some 13,000 to 15,000 years ago. They are described as "complex hunter-gatherers" who performed elaborate burials of their dead, used grindstones to prepare food and engaged in harvesting and storage of wild nuts, the study said.

When deadly biology puts on a white hat

Prions — the misfolded proteins implicated in mad cow disease — have always seemed to be inherently a bad thing. But new research suggests that some kinds of prions may actually be beneficial, protecting from disease even as their scary cousins cause it.

How tube worms and bacteria can help underwater archaeology

Underwater archaeologists usually aren't big fans of the stubbornly clingy creatures that attach themselves to the sides of sunken vases and other shipwreck detritus. But now, ocean ecologists (who do like those life forms) are making a case for why the archaeologists should appreciate the stuff that grows on little bits of history.

There Are More Stars Than Grains Of Sand

There are 10 times more stars in the night sky than grains of sand in the world's deserts and beaches, scientists say. Astronomers have worked out that there are 70 thousand million million million - or seven followed by 22 zeros - stars visible from the Earth through telescopes. The total is said to be the most accurate estimate yet of the number of stars.

Daily Comic Relief

The 'First' Giant Panda And How It Ended Up In Paris

The discovery of the giant panda took place less than 150 years ago, when a French Catholic priest got his hands on 'a most excellent black and white bear.'

The first westerner to clap eyes on a giant panda is thought to have been a French priest and naturalist known as Armand David. He'd been posted to China in 1862 to spread the Christian word, but was a keen naturalist too and went on several collecting trips over the course of his stay, sending specimens back to the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris.

Cattle rustlers dumped car with four live cows inside

Two men had to abandon their Proton Wira car that had been modified for cattle rustling after it broke down in Malaysia on Sunday.

The car with the back seat removed was loaded with four cows, rustled from a cattle farm in Sungai Lembu, Bukit Mertajam, with the animals in the boot/back seat compartment. Kulim deputy police chief Chin Soo Song said the farm's owner had lodged a police report on the missing cattle at the Lunas police station at 5am.

"They (the thieves) had taken the Butterworth-Kulim Expressway in making their escape but after the Lunas Toll Plaza, they came across members of the public who were helping the owner to find the animals. They then drove away but their car broke down a short distance away, forcing them to abandon the vehicle and booty," he said.

He added that members of the public joined by a team from the Pertubuhan Perihatin Kemsyarakatan Daerah Kulim (PPKM) later found the animals at around 7am near Kampung Siam, about 15 kilometers from where they were stolen.

Dog found treading water two miles off Florida coast

At about 7:30 on Thursday morning, a fisherman saw a small dog's nose rising above the waves about 2 miles from the St. Petersburg shoreline in Tampa Bay. He pulled it from the water and took it to a marina at Demens Landing Park. It's not clear how the dog got into the water, nor how long she had been treading water before she was rescued.

Anthony Basile was going to pay rent for his boat slip when he saw the fishermen putting the dog on the dock. He took the dog, named Baby, to his boat and has been caring for her since. "It's sad," Basile said. "The dog is lost." Basile said Baby could barely take care of herself and it didn't take long for him to get attached. When he first took Baby to his boat he wasn't sure she would even make it.
"I tried to give her some food. She wouldn't eat, she wouldn't drink. Just shaking scared," Basile said. He sat with her for hours making sure she was warm while trying to calm her down. So far efforts to figure that out what happened to Baby lead to more questions. She has a collar on with her name on it, even a phone number to call, but it has been disconnected. Baby is well trained and friendly. She is clearly comfortable on Basile's boat and is now eating, drinking and making herself more at home.

YouTube link.

But Basile says she knows this isn't where she is supposed to be. "If you watch the dog, she's looking for somebody else," he said. Until he can find that person, he will treat her like she is his own baby. "I'm not going to leave the dogs side. I'll find a home for her or keep her as long as it has to be," Basile said. He also took her to the vet where they scanned the dog and found a micro chip. They found one and have tried to contact the person listed, but so far, no luck.

Animal News

Top 10 Weird Ways Animals Stay Warm in Winter

To conquer the cold, animals have astounding survival skills such as antifreeze blood, lounging by hot springs, and even having gender-bender orgies.

New Bigfoot Claim, Old Bigfoot Hoaxer

A wilderness tracker claims to have shot a Bigfoot named Hank.

Tiny Ancestor of All Modern Carnivores Found

The new species was a 2-pound tree-dweller that likely fed on even smaller mammals and insects.

Animal Superpower -- The Eyes Have It: Photos

Bugs, animals and fish see the world differently, helping to explain some of their unique behaviors.

Animal Pictures

The Daily Drift

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Today in History

1681		The Treaty of Radzin ends a five year war between the Turks and the allied countries of Russia and Poland.
1745		England, Austria, Saxony and the Netherlands form an alliance against Russia.
1815		A rag-tag army under Andrew Jackson defeats the British on the fields of Chalmette in the Battle of New Orleans.
1871		Prussian troops begin to bombard Paris during the Franco-Prussian War.
1892		A coal mine explosion kills 100 in McAlister, Oklahoma.
1900		The Boers attack the British in Ladysmith, South Africa, but are turned back.
1908		A subway line opens linking the New York boroughs of Brooklyn and Manhattan.
1940		Great Britain begins rationing sugar, meat and butter.
1946		President Harry S. Truman vows to stand by the Yalta accord on self-determination for the Balkans.
1954		President Dwight Eisenhower proposes stripping convicted Communists of their U.S. citizenship.
1963		President John F. Kennedy attends the unveiling of the Mona Lisa.
1975		Ella T. Grasso becomes Governor of Connecticut, the first female governor in the US who did not come into office by succeeding her husband.
1979		The United States advises the Shah to leave Iran.
1982		AT&T agrees to divest 22 subdivisions as part of an antitrust agreement.
1994		Valeri Polyakov, a Russian cosmonaut leaves earth, bound for the Mir space station; he will spend a record 437 days in space.
2002		US President George W. Bush signs into law the No Child Left Behind Act, intended to improve America's educational system.
2004		The largest passenger ship in history, the RMS Queen Mary 2, is christened by Queen Elizabeth II, granddaughter of Queen Mary.
2011		An attempted assassination of Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords is part of a shooting spree in which Jared Lee Loughner kills 6 and wounds 13.

Non Sequitur