The brains of children with autism contain a built-in
patchwork of defects, suggesting that the developmental disorder begins
while they are growing in the womb.
Sunday, April 6, 2014
Can a Brain Injury Make You a Genius?
Have you ever heard the phrase, "What doesn't kill you makes
you stronger?" Annie joins DNews today to discuss some interesting cases
of people who experienced severe injuries that led them to develop
weird new abilities.
Reading Minds
Scientists have used brain scanners to detect and reconstruct
the faces that people are thinking of, according to a new study.
Dosing cancer patients with psilocybin
NYU is beginning research with using psychedelic drugs to improve
the emotional/psychological health of people with cancer. An upcoming
study with 32 volunteers will be the largest study of psychedelic medicine in more than 40 years.
Booster makes immune system better
How You Can Be Fit But Not Healthy
A controversial body of research suggests that exercise won’t
protect your heart if you don’t also eat well and for some people, take
drugs.
Black death was not spread by rat fleas, say researchers
Evidence from skulls in east London shows plague had to have been airborne to spread so quickly
Black death researchers extracted plague DNA from 14th century skulls found in east London.
Archaeologists and forensic scientists who have examined 25
skeletons unearthed in the Clerkenwell area of London a year ago believe
they have uncovered the truth about the nature of the Black Death that
ravaged Britain and Europe in the mid-14th century.
Analysis of the bodies and of wills registered in London at the time has cast doubt on "facts" that every schoolchild has learned for decades: that the epidemic was caused by a highly contagious strain spread by the fleas on rats.
Now evidence taken from the human remains found in Charterhouse Square, to the north of the City of London, during excavations carried out as part of the construction of the Crossrail train line, have suggested a different cause: only an airborne infection could have spread so fast and killed so quickly.
The Black Death arrived in Britain from central Asia in the autumn of 1348 and by late spring the following year it had killed six out of every 10 people in London. Such a rate of destruction would kill five million now. By extracting the DNA of the disease bacterium, Yersinia pestis, from the largest teeth in some of the skulls retrieved from the square, the scientists were able to compare the strain of bubonic plague preserved there with that which was recently responsible for killing 60 people in Madagascar. To their surprise, the 14th-century strain, the cause of the most lethal catastrophe in recorded history, was no more virulent than today's disease. The DNA codes were an almost perfect match.
According to scientists working at Public Health England in Porton Down, for any plague to spread at such a pace it must have got into the lungs of victims who were malnourished and then been spread by coughs and sneezes. It was therefore a pneumonic plague rather than a bubonic plague. Infection was spread human to human, rather than by rat fleas that bit a sick person and then bit another victim. "As an explanation [rat fleas] for the Black Death in its own right, it simply isn't good enough. It cannot spread fast enough from one household to the next to cause the huge number of cases that we saw during the Black Death epidemics," said Dr Tim Brooks from Porton Down, who will put his theory in a Channel 4 documentary, Secret History: The Return of the Black Death, next Sunday.
To support his argument, Brooks has looked at what happened in Suffolk in 1906 when plague killed a family and then spread to a neighbour who had come to help. The culprit was pneumonic plague, which had settled in the lungs of the victims and was spread through infected breath.
The skeletons at Charterhouse Square reveal that the population of London was also in generally poor health when the disease struck. Crossrail's archaeology contractor, Don Walker, and Jelena Bekvalacs of the Museum of London found evidence of rickets, anaemia, bad teeth and childhood malnutrition.
In support of the case that this was a fast-acting, direct contagion, archaeologist Dr Barney Sloane found that in the medieval City of London all wills had to be registered at the Court of Hustings. These led him to believe that 60% of Londoners were wiped out.
Antibiotics can today prevent the disease from becoming pneumonic. In the spring of 1349, the death rate did not ease until Pentecost on 31 May.
Analysis of the bodies and of wills registered in London at the time has cast doubt on "facts" that every schoolchild has learned for decades: that the epidemic was caused by a highly contagious strain spread by the fleas on rats.
Now evidence taken from the human remains found in Charterhouse Square, to the north of the City of London, during excavations carried out as part of the construction of the Crossrail train line, have suggested a different cause: only an airborne infection could have spread so fast and killed so quickly.
The Black Death arrived in Britain from central Asia in the autumn of 1348 and by late spring the following year it had killed six out of every 10 people in London. Such a rate of destruction would kill five million now. By extracting the DNA of the disease bacterium, Yersinia pestis, from the largest teeth in some of the skulls retrieved from the square, the scientists were able to compare the strain of bubonic plague preserved there with that which was recently responsible for killing 60 people in Madagascar. To their surprise, the 14th-century strain, the cause of the most lethal catastrophe in recorded history, was no more virulent than today's disease. The DNA codes were an almost perfect match.
According to scientists working at Public Health England in Porton Down, for any plague to spread at such a pace it must have got into the lungs of victims who were malnourished and then been spread by coughs and sneezes. It was therefore a pneumonic plague rather than a bubonic plague. Infection was spread human to human, rather than by rat fleas that bit a sick person and then bit another victim. "As an explanation [rat fleas] for the Black Death in its own right, it simply isn't good enough. It cannot spread fast enough from one household to the next to cause the huge number of cases that we saw during the Black Death epidemics," said Dr Tim Brooks from Porton Down, who will put his theory in a Channel 4 documentary, Secret History: The Return of the Black Death, next Sunday.
To support his argument, Brooks has looked at what happened in Suffolk in 1906 when plague killed a family and then spread to a neighbour who had come to help. The culprit was pneumonic plague, which had settled in the lungs of the victims and was spread through infected breath.
The skeletons at Charterhouse Square reveal that the population of London was also in generally poor health when the disease struck. Crossrail's archaeology contractor, Don Walker, and Jelena Bekvalacs of the Museum of London found evidence of rickets, anaemia, bad teeth and childhood malnutrition.
In support of the case that this was a fast-acting, direct contagion, archaeologist Dr Barney Sloane found that in the medieval City of London all wills had to be registered at the Court of Hustings. These led him to believe that 60% of Londoners were wiped out.
Antibiotics can today prevent the disease from becoming pneumonic. In the spring of 1349, the death rate did not ease until Pentecost on 31 May.
A 3,300-Year-Old Tomb with Pyramid Entrance Discovered in Egypt
A tomb newly excavated at an ancient cemetery in Egypt would have
boasted a pyramid 7 meters (23 feet) high at its entrance,
archaeologists say.
The tomb, found at the site of Abydos, dates back around 3,300 years. Within one of its vaulted burial chambers, a team of archaeologists found a finely crafted sandstone sarcophagus, painted red, which was created for a scribe named Horemheb. The sarcophagus has images of several Egyptian gods on it and hieroglyphic inscriptions recording spells from the Book of the Dead that helped one enter the afterlife.
There is no mummy in the sarcophagus, and the tomb was ransacked at least twice in antiquity. Human remains survived the ransacking, however. Archaeologists found disarticulated skeletal remains from three to four men, 10 to 12 women and at least two children in the tomb.
Newly discovered pyramid
The chambers that the archaeologists uncovered would have originally resided beneath the surface, leaving only the steep-sided pyramid visible.
"Originally, all you probably would have seen would have been the pyramid and maybe a little wall around the structure just to enclose everything," said Kevin Cahail, a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania, who led excavations at the tomb.
The pyramid itself "probably would have had a small mortuary chapel inside of it that may have held a statue or a stela giving the names and titles of the individuals buried underneath," Cahail told Live Science. Today, all that remains of the pyramid are the thick walls of the tomb entranceway that would have formed the base of the pyramid. The other parts of the pyramid either haven't survived or have not yet been found.
Military ties
It was not uncommon, at this time, for tombs of elite individuals to contain small pyramids, Cahail said. The tomb was excavated in the summer and winter field seasons of 2013 and Cahail will be presenting results at the annual meeting of the American Research Center in Egypt, to be held in Portland, Ore., from April 4-6.
Cahail believes that Horemheb's family had military ties that allowed them to afford such an elaborate tomb. Another burial chamber, this one missing a sarcophagus, contains shabti figurines that were crafted to do the work of the deceased in the afterlife. Writing on the figurines say that they are for the "Overseer of the Stable, Ramesu (also spelled Ramesses)." This appears to be a military title and it’s possible that Ramesu was the father or older brother of Horemheb, Cahail said.
He noted it's interesting that both Horemheb and Ramesu share names with two military leaders, who lived at the same time they did. Both of these leaders would become pharaohs.
"They could actually be emulating their names on these very powerful individuals that eventually became pharaoh, or they could have just been names that were common at the time," Cahail said.
Multiple wives?
The bones the team discovered in the tomb indicate that considerably more women than men were buried in the tomb. This brings up the question of whether Horemheb and Ramesu had multiple wives at the same time. Cahail said that polygamy was a common practice among the pharaohs, but it's uncertain if it was practiced among non-royalty.
Another possibility is that the tomb was used for multiple generations by the same family and contains the remains of daughters, mothers and other female relatives. Yet another possibility is that the tomb was re-used, without permission, at a later date.
Radiocarbon tests, which can provide a date range for the bones, may be done in the future to help solve the mystery.
"You’re left with the question, who are all these people?" Cahail said.
A Jasper treasure
One of the most interesting artifacts the team found was a heart amulet, made of red and green jasper. The hard stone amulet was broken into three pieces.
"It's a beautiful object and possibly one of the best carved examples of these very rare type of amulets," Cahail said. "It was probably on the chest of one of the deceased individuals and there probably would have been some sort of necklaces and gold and things like that."
The purpose of this heart-shaped amulet was probably related to spells from the Book of the Dead that tell the heart of the deceased not to lie. The ancient Egyptians believed that, after death, their hearts would be put on a scale and weighed against a feather representing ma'at, an Egyptian concept that includes truth and justice. If their heart weighed the same or less they could obtain eternal life, but if it weighed more they were destroyed.
"Essentially, your heart and your good deeds and everything that you've done in your life is weighed against the measure of truth," Cahail said.
The tomb, found at the site of Abydos, dates back around 3,300 years. Within one of its vaulted burial chambers, a team of archaeologists found a finely crafted sandstone sarcophagus, painted red, which was created for a scribe named Horemheb. The sarcophagus has images of several Egyptian gods on it and hieroglyphic inscriptions recording spells from the Book of the Dead that helped one enter the afterlife.
There is no mummy in the sarcophagus, and the tomb was ransacked at least twice in antiquity. Human remains survived the ransacking, however. Archaeologists found disarticulated skeletal remains from three to four men, 10 to 12 women and at least two children in the tomb.
Newly discovered pyramid
The chambers that the archaeologists uncovered would have originally resided beneath the surface, leaving only the steep-sided pyramid visible.
"Originally, all you probably would have seen would have been the pyramid and maybe a little wall around the structure just to enclose everything," said Kevin Cahail, a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania, who led excavations at the tomb.
The pyramid itself "probably would have had a small mortuary chapel inside of it that may have held a statue or a stela giving the names and titles of the individuals buried underneath," Cahail told Live Science. Today, all that remains of the pyramid are the thick walls of the tomb entranceway that would have formed the base of the pyramid. The other parts of the pyramid either haven't survived or have not yet been found.
Military ties
It was not uncommon, at this time, for tombs of elite individuals to contain small pyramids, Cahail said. The tomb was excavated in the summer and winter field seasons of 2013 and Cahail will be presenting results at the annual meeting of the American Research Center in Egypt, to be held in Portland, Ore., from April 4-6.
Cahail believes that Horemheb's family had military ties that allowed them to afford such an elaborate tomb. Another burial chamber, this one missing a sarcophagus, contains shabti figurines that were crafted to do the work of the deceased in the afterlife. Writing on the figurines say that they are for the "Overseer of the Stable, Ramesu (also spelled Ramesses)." This appears to be a military title and it’s possible that Ramesu was the father or older brother of Horemheb, Cahail said.
He noted it's interesting that both Horemheb and Ramesu share names with two military leaders, who lived at the same time they did. Both of these leaders would become pharaohs.
"They could actually be emulating their names on these very powerful individuals that eventually became pharaoh, or they could have just been names that were common at the time," Cahail said.
Multiple wives?
The bones the team discovered in the tomb indicate that considerably more women than men were buried in the tomb. This brings up the question of whether Horemheb and Ramesu had multiple wives at the same time. Cahail said that polygamy was a common practice among the pharaohs, but it's uncertain if it was practiced among non-royalty.
Another possibility is that the tomb was used for multiple generations by the same family and contains the remains of daughters, mothers and other female relatives. Yet another possibility is that the tomb was re-used, without permission, at a later date.
Radiocarbon tests, which can provide a date range for the bones, may be done in the future to help solve the mystery.
"You’re left with the question, who are all these people?" Cahail said.
A Jasper treasure
One of the most interesting artifacts the team found was a heart amulet, made of red and green jasper. The hard stone amulet was broken into three pieces.
"It's a beautiful object and possibly one of the best carved examples of these very rare type of amulets," Cahail said. "It was probably on the chest of one of the deceased individuals and there probably would have been some sort of necklaces and gold and things like that."
The purpose of this heart-shaped amulet was probably related to spells from the Book of the Dead that tell the heart of the deceased not to lie. The ancient Egyptians believed that, after death, their hearts would be put on a scale and weighed against a feather representing ma'at, an Egyptian concept that includes truth and justice. If their heart weighed the same or less they could obtain eternal life, but if it weighed more they were destroyed.
"Essentially, your heart and your good deeds and everything that you've done in your life is weighed against the measure of truth," Cahail said.
Why Astrology Isn't Real Science
Astrology focuses on star charts and zodiac signs to build a
foundation to one's life. Astrology is also a bunch of asserted,
unproven, untested mumbo jumbo. Laci breaks down how and why astrology
shouldn't be considered a real science.
Scientists solve riddle of celestial archaeology
A visit to the Antarctic telescope where scientists study gravitational waves
For the scientists who live and work at BICEP2, McMurdo Sound is just a stopover on the way to the even-more-isolated Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.
Mimicking Mars
Mars-mimicking chamber explores habitability of other planets
Astronomical News
The hunt for the hypothetical Planet X has been fruitless so
far, but that doesn't mean astronomers are calling it off.
Coming Tomorrow
Coming Tomorrow
- The Rise and Fall of Professional Bowling
- What's it like to be a professional line sitter
- Corner kick delayed by Betty Boop
- 13 Awesome ways to use hot sauce
Saturday, April 5, 2014
The Daily Drift
It's Open Season
Carolina Naturally is read in 196 countries around the world daily.
Karma it does find it's way around ... !
Today is - Tangible Karma Day
Don't forget to visit our sister blog: It Is What It Is
Some of our reader today have been in:
The Americas
Montreal,
Saint John's, Pikangikum, Ottawa, Britannia, Quebec, Winnipeg, Fort
Nelson, Toronto, Moncton, Delta and Mississauga, Canada
Coeur
D'Alene, Albuquerque, Artesia, Yorba Linda, Haddonfield, Muskogee,
Skokie, Shrewsbury, Alpena, Cullowhee and Highlands, United States
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Merida and Mexico City, Mexico
Managua, Nicaragua
Rio De Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Alta Floresta, Brazil
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Medellin, Colombia
Fernando De La Mora, Paraguay
Europe
Minsk, Belarus
Kharkiv and Zhovti Vody, Ukraine
Mol, Belgium
Le Harve, Roubaix an Bordeaux, France
Kista and Stokholm, Sweden
Bucharest and Slatina, Romania
Bilbao, Madrid and Magala, Spain
London, Slough, Bristol and Leicester, England
Moscow, Vladivostok and Ryazan, Russia
Kerpen, Hamburg, Nuremberg, Ludenscheid and Dresden, Germany
Oslo, Norway
Sofia, Bulgaria
Riga, Latvia
Stara Pazova, Serbia
Nicosia, Cyprus
Rome, Ravenna and Terlizzi, Italy
Dublin, Ireland
Reykjavik, Iceland
Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Mamak, Turkey
Groningen, Netherlands
Copenhagen, Denmark
Asia
Delhi, Cuttack, Patna, Mumbai, Surat, New Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore, Shillong and Indore, India
Cukai, Bayan Lepas and Temerluh, Malaysia
La Dagotiere and Quarte Bornes, Mauritius
Umm Salal Muhammad and Doha, Qatar
Jakarta, Indonesia
Karachi, Pakistan
Beijing, China
Tehran, Iran
Colombo, Sri Lanka
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Africa
Tunis, Tunisia
Calabar, Nigeria
Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa
The Pacific
Cebu City, Philippines
Sydney and Mackay, Australia
Auckland, New Zealand
Today in History
| 1242 | Russian troops repel an invasion by Teutonic knights. | |
| 1614 | Pocahontas marries English colonist John Rolfe. | |
| 1792 | George Washington casts the first presidential veto. | |
| 1843 | Queen Victoria proclaims Hong Kong a British crown colony. | |
| 1861 | Gideon Wells, the Secretary of the Navy issues official orders for the | |
| 1865 | As the Confederate army approaches Appomattox, it skirmishes with Union forces at Amelia Springs and Paine's Cross Road. | |
| 1908 | The Japanese Army reaches Yalu River as Russians retreat. | |
| 1919 | Eamon de Valera becomes president of Ireland. | |
| 1930 | Mahatma Ghandi defies British law by making salt in India instead of buying it from the British. | |
| 1941 | German commandos secure docks along the Danube River in preparation for Germany's invasion of the Balkans. | |
| 1943 | The British 8th Army attacks the next blocking position of the retreating Axis forces at Wadi Akarit. | |
| 1951 | Americans Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are sentenced to death for espionage. | |
| 1955 | Winston Churchill resigns as British prime minister. | |
| 1986 | A bomb explodes in a West Berlin disco packed with American soldiers. |
Gulf War Illness Not in Veterans’ Heads ...
Death penalty still popular among whites ...
... but support declining
Nearly two thirds of white people support the death penalty, with evangelical protestants bloodthirstiest of all. Black Americans favor it the least, with only 36 percent in favor of executing murderers. The findings are part of the 2013 Pew survey, in which 55% of Americans say they favor the ultimate punishment for murderers. It's falling fast, though, down from 78% twenty years ago. But it is because of changing beliefs about the morality of killing people, or because there are simply too many appalling mistakes?Sweden, home of modern pop music
America, #1, has the largest pop music business, and #2 spot holder
Japan the weirdest. Third-place Britain is famous for punching above its
weight, but #4 will surprise you: Sweden, the pop music powerhouse. It all comes down to the Swedish Pop Mafia.
Black Markets for Hackers Are Increasingly Sophisticated ...
Electricity Decentralization
... here we come
Small-scale, rooftop solar power is starting to seriously destabilize the future of electric utility business plans. What will be the utility's role? Will we even need an electric grid? At Scientific American, David Biello reports on how companies and customers are navigating the shift to a different model of energy production.
Northwestern University Football Players Win Bid To Form Union
The
Chicago regional chapter of the National Labor Relations Board has
approved the petition from a group of Northwestern University
football players seeking to form a union, a preliminary but
unprecedented victory for college athletes that could lead to the
formation of the first players' union in college sports history.
.
The
College Athletes Players Association, led by former Northwestern
quarterback Kain Colter and National Collegiate Players Association
director Ramogi Huma, himself a former college football player,
argued in front of the NLRB that college athletes fit the definition
of employees under federal labor law and as such should have the
right to organize and bargain with their employer, in this case
Northwestern University. That university and the NCAA argued that the
players are students first, not employees of the university, and
shouldn't have that right.
.
The
NLRB examiner agreed with the players.
"[P]layers receiving scholarships to perform football-related services for the Employer under a contract for hire in return for compensation are subject to the Employer's control and are therefore employees," the decision said.
ZZ Top Perform Music For A Prom In 1970
‘Sweat the small stuff’ to get healthier
International researchers say even one small act, such as failing […]
Rates of blindness, partial sight plummet in developed world
Mentally challenging jobs may keep your mind sharp long after retirement
The bad science behind brain training
Why Lumosity.com (and other workouts for your brain) are unlikely to actually make you smarter or help you think better.
Famous paintings help study the Earth’s past atmosphere
A recipe for glue and other hidden images
Sticky cheese might be the secret behind one of the most intriguing Mannerist paintings.
As restorers work to revitalize a painting by 16th-century Mannerist Jacopo Pontormo, surprising details emerge.
Life on the frozen-food-tasting line
Matthew: I’d come home with huge blisters in my mouth from the salt. Yeah, fried food doesn’t have the same appeal anymore. And the other amazing thing is seeing the whole world behind literally every product we consume. Every aspect of the foods, taste, appearance, texture, is so insanely focus grouped and tested. Every major food company has a similar testing process.
Mike: Does this mean you were eating many different versions of the same curly fry?
Matthew: Yes, there’d be slight variations in spices, in cooking time, in the kind of potato. We’d test them at different intervals to see how the taste changed once they were taken out of the fryer, or how micro-waving them would affect their texture. One aromatic that was fun to pick out was “cardboard”—an actual aromatic on the ballot—and to compare we had cups of water with brown paper towels in them.
Matthew: Oh, and another weird thing I learned: To cut corners with cheese products companies sometimes use the acids from cheese production instead of the more expensive cheese products, and these acids are basically bile from different animals (a food scientist might have a more nuanced view). So sometimes we’d be spitting out these inexpensive cheese products all day, and your mouth would just be full of this vomit bile taste.
The anti-suicidal properties of ketamine
Beer Money And Babe Ruth
Why The Yankees Triumphed During Prohibition
One of the best beer-and-baseball stories comes from the dry years of Prohibition, 1920-1933, when the New York Yankees made it to seven World Series and won four.
Their rise began in 1915, when the team was purchased for $1.25 million by Tillinghast Huston and Jacob Ruppert, Jr. The Yankees had never won a pennant until the Colonels, as they were known, got a hold of them. Their masterstroke was to add a Boston Red Sox pitcher to the roster in 1920. That player's name was Babe Ruth.
Little Red Riding Hood Was A Jerk
FDA rules make it nearly impossible for beer makers to give their grain to farmers for feed
Leftover brewing grains have been fed to livestock since the dawn of agriculture, so this is a pretty radical shift. The proposed new requirements for animal feed handling stipulate that the feed has to be dried, analyzed and packaged before being donated to farmers (the spent grains are generally given away at the end of the brewing process), at substantial expense.
It's clear that food safety is important, but I'm not convinced that the stringency of this rule is commensurate with the risk.
Brandon Mazer is legal counsel for Maine’s largest brewer, Shipyard, which produces 400-600 tons of spent grain per week during its peak production seasons. Those grains are dumped onto a truck trailer and go to farms as feed.
“It’s a very big umbrella, and we got sucked under it,” Mazer said of the proposed FDA rule change. He said that no brewers in Maine, and few in the country, are equipped with the machinery, personnel or money to meet the requirements outlined by the FDA.
The Brewers Association, Beer Institute, American Malting Barley Association and other brewing organizations have voiced strong opposition to the new restrictions, calling for an exemption for brewers.
The Beer Institute says that in 2012 alone, U.S. brewers produced about 2.7 million tons of spent grain.
The FDA has extended the public comment period on this set of rules until March 31, and brewers and farmers that work with them say they are watching closely.
Astro-Biology
Understanding the limits of life on Earth could help scientists learn more about what life on alien worlds could be.
Coming Tomorrow
Coming Tomorrow
- Can a brain injury make you a genius?
- Why astrology isn't real science
- The altruistic side of aggressive greed
- Brain differences in college-aged occasional drug users
Friday, April 4, 2014
The Daily Drift
It's Feral Flora and Fauna
and today's posts deal more with fauna than flora but give it time
Carolina Naturally is read in 196 countries around the world daily.
For all the nerds ... !
Today is - Square Root Day
Don't forget to visit our sister blog: It Is What It Is
Some of our reader today have been in:
The Americas
Cleveland,
Memphis, Baltimore, Stamford, Newark, Tampa, Pittsburgh, Manhattan,
Sacramento, Miami, Portland, Philadelphia, Davenport, Dallas,
minneapolis, Phoenix, Akron, Englewood, Tucson, Boston, Buffalo,
Lincoln, United States
Pikangikum, Mississauga, Regina,
Saskatoon, Ottawa, Vancouver, Montreal, Thunder Bay, Sioux Lookout,
Delta, Winnipeg, Toronto, Saint John's, Canada
Medellin, Bogota, Cali, Colombia
Managua, Nicaragua
Sao Paulo, Curitiba, Brazil
Lima, Peru
San Jose, San Pedro, Costa Rica
Europe
Slough, London, Maidenhead, Radlett, England
Piraeus, Athens, Greece
Zhovti Vody, Ukraine
Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Mostar, Sarajevo, Hadzici, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Lodz, Poznan, Gdynia, Warsaw, Kedzierzyn-Kozle, Poland
Vilnius, Lithuania
Veliko Turnovo, Bulgaria
Hrinova, Slovakia
Calais, Le Harve, Paris, France
Hellersdorf, Germany
Nicosia, Cyprus
Rome, Ivrea, Livorno, Milan, Pisa, Italy
Kista, Stockholm, Sweden
Frederiksberg, Denmark
Logrono, Bilbao, Madrid, Basauri, Magala, Spain
Bucharest, Slatina, Romania
Moscow, Ryazan, Aya, Russia
Istanbul, Turkey
Dublin, Cork, Ireland
Covilha, Portugal
Asia
Umm Salal Mohammad, Doha, Qatar
Kuala Lumpur, Sibu, Bayan Lepas, Kota Kinabalu, Shah Alam, Taiping, Malaysia
Bhubaneshwar, Bangalore, Mumbai, Coimbatore, Chetput, Delhi, Cochin, Shillong, Kolkata, Pune, India
Esfahan, Tehran, Tabriz, Iran
Thanh Pho Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam
Guangzhou, Shijiazhung, China
Al Hudaydah, Yemen
Ad Dammam, Riyadh, Ad Dilam, Saudi Arabia
Jakarta, Depok, Surakarta, Indonesia
Colombo, Kandy, Sri Lanka
Islamabad, Pakistan
Port Louis, Quarte Bornes, La Dagotiere, Mauritius
Hong Kong, Hong, Kong
Vientiane, Laos
Bangkok, Thailand
Beirut, Lebanon
Osaka, Japan
Africa
Accra, Ghana
Algiers, Algeria
Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
Johannesburg, South Africa
The Pacific
Sydney, Brisbane, Fortitude Valley, Melbourne, Australia
Today in History
| 527 | In Constantinople, Justin, seriously ill, crowns his nephew Justinian as his co-emperor. | |
| 1581 | Francis Drake completes circumnavigation of the world. | |
| 1812 | The territory of Orleans becomes the 18th state and will become known as Louisiana. | |
| 1818 | The United States flag is declared to have 13 red and white stripes and 20 stars. | |
| 1841 | President William Henry Harrison, aged 68, becomes the first president to die in office, just a month after being sworn in. | |
| 1862 | The Battle of Yorktown begins as Union gen. George B. McClellan closes in on Richmond, Va. | |
| 1917 | The U.S. Senate votes 90-6 to enter World War I on Allied side. | |
| 1918 | The Battle of the Somme ends. | |
| 1941 | Field Marshal Erwin Rommel captures the British held town of Benghazi in North Africa. | |
| 1949 | The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) treaty is signed. | |
| 1968 | Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. | |
| 1974 | Hank Aaron ties Babe Ruth's home-run record. | |
| 1979 | Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the president of Pakistan is executed. | |
| 1985 | A coup in Sudan ousts President Nimeiry and replaces him with General Dahab. |
Mongolian girls becoming eagle hunters to help keep ancient tradition alive
Ashol Pan, 13, takes to centuries-old pastime that has been dominated by men
Eagle hunter Ashol Pan of Mongolia lets go of her golden eagle.
A photographer seeking to document the next generation of Kazakh
eagle hunters in Mongolia discovered a 13-year-old girl who has taken to
the male-dominated tradition.Photographer Asher Svidensky made a four-month trek through western Mongolia, mostly on horseback, and found Han Gohadok and his daughter, Ashol Pan, who had expressed a desire to take up the full-time profession that is centuries old.
Good thing, too, since the ancient pastime is said to be a dying part of Mongolian culture, as young men are leaving their families and the hunting duties behind. As a result, more girls are becoming eagle hunters to replace their brothers, according to the Mail Online.
Gohadok told the Mail Online that his eldest son was to become the eagle hunter of the family but was drafted into the army. That’s when Ashol Pan stepped forward.
Eagle
hunter Ashol Pan of Mongolia holds her golden eagle, giving perspective
on the size of the bird.
Eagle hunters use golden eagles to hunt foxes during the winter
months when the gold-colored foxes stand out against the snow. They also
hunt hares. Typically, the training of young men begins at age 13, when
they are strong enough to carry a full-grown eagle on their arm.The training is rigorous, as the master and its eagle develop a long-term and trusting relationship that is all consuming. The Kazakh custom is for the eagle hunter to ride a horse while hunting.
Svidensky was looking for something different when he set out to document eagle hunters in Mongolia.
“I decided to focus myself—stop looking for a portrait of a centuries-old image of a Kazakh eagle hunter and instead represent the future of this ancient Mongolian tradition,” Svidensky told the Mail Online.
Ashol Pan represents the future. She is one of an estimated 250 eagle hunters in western Mongolia.
In his photos, Svidensky depicts the evident joy Ashol Pan has in her new role, one her father never would have forced upon her unless she had asked. And she did.
Eagle
hunter Ashol Pan of Mongolia is developing a trusting relationship with
her golden eagle.
Eagle
hunter Ashol Pan of Mongolia gets an eagle-pat on the head.
Eagle hunter Ashol Pan of Mongolia
Jeu de la Bataille ou le Buffon amusant
![houghtonlib:
Jeu de la Bataille ou le Buffon amusant [early 19th century]
SG 3102.106.1
Houghton Library, Harvard University](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uzyhMg7bUw1VlobGpcH8x-7MdHcTxh-X7wUlswmehSKgQMzz3ohNGXqczBfh6WyqTD1__Byalmqe1tJOKHafQnOaz4hWyodJ2kVQdx4M6AYhe3exF_87ZofSQIiQk96M9aiOqeehtU28WfVgCPR5xUjYolq-Za1bnQkpVtn0YdjPY=s0-d)
Jeu de la Bataille ou le Buffon amusant [early 19th century]
SG 3102.106.1
Houghton Library, Harvard University
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
