CAROLINA NATURALLY

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

The Green Book

During the Jim Crow era in the United States, it was neither easy nor safe for African-Americans to travel from town to town. For three decades, The Negro Motorist Green Book: An International Travel Guide was an indispensable resource for finding a place to stay, eat, or buy gas in towns across America. Not necessarily the best places, but any place that would provide accommodations at all if you weren’t white.

A Harlem postal employee and civic leader named Victor H. Green conceived the guide in response to one too many accounts of humiliation or violence where discrimination continued to hold strong. These were facts of life not only in the Jim Crow South, but in all parts of the country, where black travelers never knew where they would be welcome. Over time its full title — “The Negro Motorist Green Book: An International Travel Guide” — became abbreviated, simply, as the “Green Book.” Those who needed to know about it knew about it. To much of the rest of America it was invisible, and by 1964, when the last edition was published, it slipped through the cracks into history.

The Green Book has been revived in a way, as a new play and a children’s book about the travel guide and those who used it are set to debut.

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Human ancestors had cooties

Cooties, of course, are a colloquialism for lice. And our cooties, so says Smithsonian, have a lot to tell us.
For instance, a 2008 study of ancient Peruvian mummies found that lice were already making themselves at home in the Americas, long before the arrival of Europeans. And the DNA of those lice is identical to that of lice we know originated in Africa. If the lice moved to the New World from Africa, it's likely the people they lived on did, too.
Even more intriguing—there's actually a type of head louse that only lives in the Americas. And scientists think it's a remnant of interaction between Homo sapiens and our Asian cousins, Homo erectus.

They found two genetically distinct types of head louse, one found worldwide and another exclusive to the Americas. Strangely enough, this would be possible if the two groups of louse had been living on the heads of two different species on different continents, the scientists say. Reed argued that both modern and archaic humans had their own types of lice. As modern humans--Homo sapiens--began to move out of Africa, they would have intermingled with Homo erectus--Homo sapiens' evolutionary predecessors that were living in Asia and East Africa--picking up their archaic parasites along the way to the New World.

Read more, and get links to the original research papers, at Smithsonian

First Hourglass Dolphin in 150 Years Found on New Zealand Shores

Image credit: Massey University

When Dr. Karen Stockin, a marine ecologist at Massey University in New Zealand, was called in to perform an autopsy, she was expecting to find a carcass of the relatively common dusky dolphin. Instead, she was surprised to see that it was, in fact, an hourglass dolphin—the first to wash up on the shores of New Zealand in more than 150 years.

Article continues: First Hourglass Dolphin in 150 Years Found on New Zealand Shores

Walruses Come Ashore in Alaska As Arctic Ice Melts

photo: Heather Thorkelson via flickr

In an event that the US Geological Survey is saying is "directly related to the lack of sea ice" in the Chukchi Sea, tens of thousands of walruses have come ashore in northwest Alaska. The AP quotes USGS biologist Anthony Fischbach as saying they "stretch out for one mile or more. This is just packed shoulder to shoulder."

Article continues: 10,000+ Walruses Come Ashore in Alaska As Arctic Ice Melts

Rare Kiwi Hatches from New Zealand Earthquake

Image credit: Allie_Caulfield/Flickr

The magnitude 7.0 earthquake that shook Christchurch, New Zealand, earlier this month caused damage and threatened the life and livelihood of many of the city's residents. Now, as the recovery begins, there is at least one small cause for celebration: A rare kiwi, whose incubator was rocked by the quake, has hatched.

Article continues: Rare Kiwi Hatches from New Zealand Earthquake

Ziggy

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Man captures himself on camera falling to his death

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An Austrian man was photographed falling to his death by his own camera after he used the self-timer function to take a picture of himself on a scenic tower in a picturesque region of the country.

Boeing tears down historic aircraft factory

Plant 2 made some of the famous planes that helped the war effort in WWII.

Home to 'Rosie the Riveter'

Also:

Movie Theater Bus

In the 1960s, the British government built seven buses with movie theaters inside. Only one survives to this day, but it’s been lovingly restored to its original grandeur. The bus can hold twenty-two people and is used by its owners to promote the cultures and arts of southwestern England.

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DIY Plumbing Disasters

One thing that can make you feel better about the weird things in your home is to see how much worse it could be. A plumbing information site compiled stories, links, and videos of plumbing disasters that range from “substandard” to “Rube Goldberg”!

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Exploding Sauerkraut

Who says high school science is boring? A hazmat team was summoned to a school in Prince George, British Columbia when a can of sauerkraut exploded!

Twenty-four students and four staff members at Kelly Road Secondary School were put into quarantine Friday afternoon after a can of the preserved cabbage exploded in a food sciences class.
Teachers didn’t know what was inside the can when it blew up, and called the local fire department and police to prevent an outbreak of botulism, a potentially fatal disease caused by bacteria sometimes found in canned food.
Investigators were soon able to identify the substance as the popular German sausage topping, which had been left to ferment for years.

When the hazmat team was finished, students were sent home for the day.

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Drinking for Three

This guy went into the bar Friday night and ordered three beers. In fact, every Friday night he went into the bar and ordered three beers and drank them all by himself. Three beers...every Friday night. Not 2. Never 4. Always 3.

Well, the bartender couldn't figure this out. Without fail this guy always came in. The bartender finally said to the guy, "Every Friday night you come in here and have three beers. There must be a story to this. You never order 2 beers, or 4 beers, always 3."

The guy said, "Yes, there is a story. You see, me and my two buddies always went out for a beer on Friday night when we were in Vietnam. One night while we were drinking we decided that we would continue doing this when we returned to the States. We also decided that if one of us didn't make it, the other two would drink the third one's beer. And if two didn't make it, the third guy would drink the other two beers. The other two didn't make it back so I'm drinking theirs."

The bartender felt bad.

Well, the next Friday night the guy came back into the bar as usual, but only ordered two beers. The bartender couldn't believe it.

From then on, Friday after Friday, this guy now ordered only two drinks.

The bartender was so puzzled he just had to ask the guy about it. The bartender said to him, "I notice you've only been ordering two beers for the last few weeks. There has to be a story here."

The guy said, "Yes, indeed there is a story. You see, I joined the Mormon church and I can't drink beer any more."