Berglaug

The fossilized jaw of a pint-size primate that lived about 35 million years ago in Asia has been unearthed in Thai coal mines.

This NYT Graphic explains which agencies and which personnel at those agencies must stay home due to the bizarre shutdown of the federal government today.

97% of NASA, almost all Centers for Disease Control workers, National Parks employees, All of our national museums and the DC zoo, thousands of air safety and food safety personnel, all must stop doing the valuable work they do. Renewable energy researchers, Pesticide regulators, y'all stay home too.

Will drones keep flying? Will NSA keep spying? Will mothers who can't afford food for their kids and rely on WIC keep crying? You betcha.

Academics have uncovered complex social networks within age-old Icelandic sagas, which challenge the stereotypical image of Vikings as unworldly, violent savages.

doctorcalamityjones:

Not ours. All of our start as the bottom one. And then somebody sacrifices a couple dozen NPCs and the whole thing goes to hell.

English — along with a whole host of languages spoken in Europe, India, and the Middle East — can be traced back to an ancient language that scholars call Proto Indo-European. Now, for all intents and purposes, Proto Indo-European is an imaginary language. Sort of. It's not like Klingon or anything. It is reasonable to believe it once existed. But nobody every wrote it down so we don't know exactly what "it" really was. Instead, what we know is that there are hundreds of languages that share similarities in syntax and vocabulary, suggesting that they all evolved from a common ancestor.

Of course, that very quickly leads to attempts to reconstruct what said ancestral language might have sounded like. In the track above, you can listen to University of Kentucky linguist Andrew Byrd recite a fable in reconstructed Proto Indo-European. Archaeology magazine helpfully provides a translation:

A sheep that had no wool saw horses, one of them pulling a heavy wagon, one carrying a big load, and one carrying a man quickly. The sheep said to the horses: "My heart pains me, seeing a man driving horses." The horses said: "Listen, sheep, our hearts pain us when we see this: a man, the master, makes the wool of the sheep into a warm garment for himself. And the sheep has no wool." Having heard this, the sheep fled into the plain.

Obvious, right? So how does one produce a scholarly mashup of English, Hindi, Urdu, and more, while accounting for six millennia of invention, sharing, and remixing?

There are a couple of different techniques. In the comparative method, researchers take two or more languages and start lining up their features side by side. What sounds do they share? What words sound similar? What rules do they have in common? Then you use what you know about the history of those languages to look at which ones descended from others, and to weed out words that were borrowed completely from unrelated languages thanks to trade or travel. Following the lines of descent, you can get an idea of the sounds and alphabets that the parent language originally had to work with.

The other technique, internal reconstruction, basically takes a single language and starts trying to work it backwards in time through itself. How did English distinguish itself from older Germanic languages and how has it changed since AD 500.

When you put information that you gather from both these techniques together, you can start to get a handle on what some really ancient, never-heard-by-anyone-living languages might have sounded like.

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For instance, Wikipedia has a chart showing two different versions of the Proto Indo-European numbers. If you speak one of the languages descended from Proto Indo-European, these will likely look or sound familiar.

In this video, Mariano Tomatis shows how to create chocolate out of nothing. Here is his explanation of this wonderful phenomenon, known as a missing square or vanishing area puzzle. (Thanks, Ferdinando Buscema!)

Last week the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University announced that Doctor Ruth Patrick, a scientist long associated with their program, died, after a career that laid the groundwork for the study of pollution’s effects on freshwater ecosystems.

Colleagues at Harvard and Yale have referred to her as “a pioneer environmental activist,” who “was worried about and addressing water pollution before the rest of us even thought of focusing on it.” Dr. Patrick earned her Ph.D. in 1934, no easy feat for a woman at the time. In 1937 she was able to secure the unpaid position of assistant curator of microscopy at the AoNS at Drexel. It would take eight years before she’d be given a salary, two years later she would establish a new department, and a year after that she would successfully prove that studying the population of microscopic diatoms in a body of water could be used to measure its how polluted it was and by what, creating a system of measurement now used worldwide.

From the New York Times:

Her team, including a chemist, a bacteriologist, and animal and plant experts, determined the types of pollutants in sections of the river and then identified the plant and animal species. Dr. Patrick found that some species of diatoms thrived in water that was heavily contaminated with organic material like human sewage, while other flourished among chemical pollution.

Refining this finding, she was able to examine a sample of stream water under a microscope, determine the type and numbers of diatoms present, and tell what kind of pollution was present and how severe it was.

To check the number and types of diatoms, Dr. Patrick invented a device called the diatometer, a plastic box containing microscope slides that when strategically placed in a stream collects the maximum number of the organisms.

Dr. Patrick would go on to advise two presidents on environmental policy (Johnson and Reagan), serve on the board of the Pennsylvania Power and Light Company, be elected to the National Academy of Sciences, and receive both the National Medal of Science and the $150,000 John and Alice Tyler Ecology Award, the world’s richest prize for scientific achievement at the time she was awarded it. She was also the first woman to serve on the DuPont Company board of directors.

In 2004, she told an interviewer “I collected everything [as a child]: worms, mushrooms, plants, rocks. I remember the feeling I got when my father would roll back the top of his big desk in the library and roll out the microscope. He would make slides with drops of the water samples we had collected, and I would climb up on his knee and peer in. It was miraculous, looking through a window at a whole other world.”

May her life inspire other young women to take a good look into the scientific world. Our usual obituary category “so long and thanks for all the fish” is uncannily appropriate.

(story via The New York Times, top pic via Flickr.)

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Datamancer is selling an astounding steampunk PC on eBay (starting bid: $14K), whose every detail is awesome in every day, from the fool-the-eye case that appears to be full of brassworks to the brass keyboard to the mouse made from a telegraph clacker.

PC CASE: The most striking feature of the PC case is the cosmetic display of gears, cogs, cams, and levers in the front of the machine. The rear wall of the display is polished brass, which casts a reflection making it appear as though the entire PC case is full of nothing but brass machinery. There are custom beveled-glass windows in the side though, which you can use to see your hardware, should you want to show it off. The PC case is designed around the "ATX format" of PC hardware, which is the format all PC parts obey, so this machine can be upgraded for years and years with new computer parts. This was a slow build, so we intentionally left the case empty of PC hardware until now, so that upon purchase we can install the latest equipment inside rather than letting the hardware age, which is why there are no specs listed. The included machine will be "gaming level" at the very least. Please contact us if you have specific hardware requests.

MONITOR: The 20" LCD features a brass border with custom engraved acanthus-leaf details which match the acanthus-leaf designs on the keyboard. The LCD case has a hand-carved double swan's neck pediment across the top, with a brass finial in the center. On the sides of the LCD case are custom-made, tombstone-shaped beveled-glass windows through which you can see a vintage film projector with custom-made spinning brass film reels, which is pointing into a sort of light projection box with metal accents. Inside this light box is a small LED light source with a custom-designed strobe light circuit which flickers and flashes, giving the impression that the projector is displaying images directly to the rear of the LCD screen. The projector can be controlled through a small switch on the top of the LCD. It is a very impressive display and always draws a gasp and a cheer when shown to people for the first time. The LCD case also has small sconces on either side, which are linked to a dimmer switch on the top of the case, lending a rich, golden glow to any room. The rear panel of the LCD is removable for servicing and cleaning, and comes off with a quick tug on the supplied brass handles. On the top of the LCD case is a cast brass vent cover.

KEYBOARD: The keyboard is one of our "Marquis" model keyboards which is constructed of sturdy solid brass and features etched, acanthus leaf designs to match the engravings around the LCD screen. The keyboard has a black leather faceplate to match the black leather on the table, and can be made for any language layout, in either 104 or 105-key configurations, and with your choice of font and color. All of our keyboards use the highest-quality mechanical switches, meaning they will last for decades

MOUSE: The mouse is made from an old morse code telegraph "clacker". The mouse pad is a custom-built pad with a gold foil map under glass.

TABLE: The table is scratch-built and covered in black leather vinyl with approximately a zillion brass rivets. The table legs are cast-iron legs from an old Singer sewing machine and are built on hinges so they can fold up inside the table for ease of shipping and transport through doorways and such. There is a surge protector built onto the rear of the table as well. On the front of the table is a cushioned, burgundy wrist pad, help up by black, wrought-iron supports. In case you need to see if it will fit in your home, the table measures approximately 6' x 3.5' deep and the entire PC suite stands about 5.5' tall.

SPEAKERS: The speakers are authentic Atwater-Kent radio speakers into which have been install a set of modern PC speakers, with vintage knobs for power and volume, and a jewel lens for the power LED. The sound is very directional, but definitely fills up a room nicely.

ACCESSORIES: Included are the Crosley Radio "Eiffel Tower" phone and the picture frame, both of which feature a similar floral motif to the acanthus engravings and the floral metalwork on the sconces.

Victorian Retro Steampunk Computer by Datamancer. One of a kind! Amazing!

I'm loving this short film about two sixth-grade metalheads from Flatbush, Brooklyn.

There is a particular moment right before fame strikes a young musician – between the full flowering of talent and believing in a dream so pure and strong as to feel bulletproof – which at the same time is almost imperceptible as it is happening. This metaphysical friction is in full effect in a certain Flatbush, Brooklyn family basement. Unlocking the Truth, a metal band composed of twelve year old Malcolm Brickhouse and eleven year old Jarad Dawkins, is playfully arguing about which member can play a faster and more forceful rendition of their self-composed instrumental blast “Physical Therapy.”

While Jarad is technically the drummer (he mastered the instrument by the age of two), he is convincingly demonstrating his guitar chops. Being the precoucious, and yet consummate, professionals that they are, the band wants to make sure that in a worst case scenario – say, a member fainting onstage – each could play the other’s instrument flawlessly. It is not atypical for Unlocking the Truth to practice for up to ten hours on weekends.

They are so immersed in their music that they barely notice anything going on around them, including their parents, who usually have to force them to stop practicing when it’s bedtime. While their classmates mostly listen to radio pop or rap, Malcolm and Jarad’s enthusiasm for metal was nurtured while watching generous amounts of WWE professional wrestling. But this is no passing phase for the two boys. The band has already written two albums, Madness and Paranoid, respectively, and recently auditioned for America’s Got Talent.

Amazingly, they manage to keep up good grades in school. So watch out, America – two smart, young metalheads from Flatbush are coming to a town near you in the near future.

You can check out the band's website here.

[The Avant-Garde Diaries, thanks Brenda]

Perhaps you've heard tell of Krokodil, an injectable street-drug popular in Russia that causes your skin to go green and scaly and eventually to rot off all the way to the bone at injection sites, and gives its habitual users permanent slurred speech and jerky motions, earning it the nickname of the "zombie drug?" Phoenix poison-control centers now report that they're treating krokodil users, suggesting that the practice of using the drug recreationally is has begun to spread to American shores. A Google Image search for "krokodil" will supply you with ample nightmare fuel for years to come.

The main ingredients in krokodil are codeine, iodine, and red phosphorous. The latter is the stuff that's used to make the striking part on matchboxes. Sometimes paint thinner, gasoline, and hydrochloric acid are thrown into the mix. Like meth, it's fairly easy to cook up in a home kitchen. You need a stove, a pan, and about 30 minutes. The drug is then injected directly into the vein, producing a high that lasts about an hour and a half. According to the Week, each injection costs about $6 to $8, while heroin is up to $25.

Zombie Apocalypse Drug Reaches US: This Is Not a Joke (Graphic Image) [Dana Liebelson/Mother Jones]

(Image: Crocodile_1, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from vassilisonline's photostream)

Video Link

(thanks, Tara McGinley!)

that-darling-little-sammy:

jibblyuniverse:

turntechhgodhead:

groupautogenics2:

monarchie:

Iceland

where’s the fuckin ice

in Greenland

I still believe Iceland and Greenland sat down in a meeting one day and it started with
"You know what’ll piss people off"

Okay no let me explain a thing. Vikings did that. See, when they found Iceland, they didn’t want anyone else to try coming there so they named it Iceland, making others think it was icy and cold and horrible, which obviously it is the opposite. They named Greenland for the same reason, so people would go there instead of Iceland because of the promise of fertile land.  

SO HERE’S THE STORY

There was this dude, Erik the Red. Bad dude. Got exiled from Iceland for killing a bunch of other dudes. Keep in mind that this is during the Viking era, when killing other dudes is generally cool, so long as you follow the rules (think Klingons and you’ll be fine). So, yeah. Really bad dude. Problem was, Erik the Red had already been banished from Norway, too, so he was kind of out of places to go.

Now, folks knew that there was more land to the northwest, but the Vikings hadn’t really bothered to check it out. So Erik the Red goes out, sets up shop, and he’s like “shit, I need some settlers here.” He comes back to Iceland, but — here’s the important bit — doesn’t come ashore, because remember, exiled. He just yells from his boat: “HEY. I found this really great place! It’s called Greenland! Completely accurate name! It does not suck and you should all go there!”

And some people did go there, found out it totally sucked, and they all died, because they were dumb Europeans who didn’t know how to do anything but farm.

Well, okay, not all of them died. Erik the Red’s son, Leifur Eiriksson (aka Leif the Lucky), was, as far as we know, the first European to make it to North America. 500 years before Columbus.

CITED SOURCES: My Icelandic partner, who learned this story as part of the Sagas, which fall somewhere between legit historical fact, folk legend, and fanfic ARE 100% TRUE HOW DARE YOU SUGGEST OTHERWISE

Also, I’m pretty sure we were at that turf house this summer, though it could be a different one. Hobbit holes tend to look similar.

Looking for a new YA series to try out? One with a female protagonist, perhaps? And partially set in space? (You know how we love us some space.) We humbly submit for your consideration Phoebe North‘s Starglass duology, about a young girl who must triumph over years of grief and abuse to overcome tyranny and lead her people. If you need a bit of convincing, check out these stunning covers by designer Lucy Ruth Cummins for Starglass, in stores now, and Starbreak, which hits shelves on July 15th. More info on the series and the other cover are behind the jump.

Starglass:

Terra has never known anything but life aboard the Asherah, a city-within-a-spaceship that left Earth five hundred years ago in search of refuge. At sixteen, working a job that doesn’t interest her, and living with a grieving father who only notices her when he’s yelling, Terra is sure that there has to be more to life than what she’s got.

But when she inadvertently witnesses the captain’s guard murdering an innocent man, Terra is suddenly thrust into the dark world beneath her ship’s idyllic surface. As she’s drawn into a secret rebellion determined to restore power to the people, Terra discovers that her choices may determine life or death for those she cares most about. With mere months to go before landing on the long-promised planet, Terra has to make the decision of a lifetime–one that will determine the fate of her people.

Starbreak

The Asherah has finally reached Zehava, the long-promised planet. There, Terra finds harsh conditions and a familiar foe—Aleksandra Wolff, leader of her ship’s rebel forces. Terra and Aleksandra first lock horns with each other . . . but soon realize they face a much more dangerous enemy in violent alien beasts—and alien hunters.

Then Terra finally discovers Vadix. The boy who has haunted her dreams may be their key to survival—but his own dark past has yet to be revealed. And when Aleksandra gets humanity expelled from the planet, it’s up to Terra, with Vadix by her side, to unite her people—and to forge an alliance with the alien hosts, who want nothing more than to see humanity gone forever.

And here’s a statement from North:

I’m so incredibly lucky to be able to share these covers for the paperback release of Starglass and the hardcover of Starbreak with you today. Designer Lucy Ruth Cummins, the genius behind Winger, The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls, and the original hardcover of Starglass, has perfectly captured not only the setting but the tone of both of my books. In Starglass, Terra is hesitant, yet filled with longing for a life ahead. In Starbreak, without the walls of her ship to protect her, she moves bravely into an uncertain future—and a life much stranger than she’d ever imagined. These are pitch-perfect covers, and so very pretty, to boot. I hope readers love them as much as I do!

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California’s lawmakers have approved legislation that will extend the state’s tax credits for plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles until 2024. The bill, which is expected to be signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, extends the state’s $2,500 tax credit that is passed on to buyers. Through the end of 2012, California has already handed out a total of $24.8 million in rebates.

Read the rest of California to Extend Electric Vehicle Tax Credits to 2024

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Space junk is an ongoing problem for the world’s space administrations as decades worth of satellite launches and space missions have filled the Earth’s orbit with trash such as fuel tanks, lost tools and parts of derelict satellites. In order to combat this growing hazard and to avoid potentially devastating collisions, the Swiss Space Center at EPFL has launched CleanSpace One, a project to develop and build the first installment of satellites designed specifically to clean up space debris.

Read the rest of Switzerland to Launch ‘Janitor’ Satellite to Collect 370,000 Pieces of Space Junk From Earth’s Orbit

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David McRaney, author of You Are Now Less Dumb and the host of Boing Boing's podcast You Are Not So Smart, made this video about the effect your clothes have on the way you think and behave.

I'm utterly fascinated by the way culture affects the outcomes of mental illness — whether that's in terms of prevalence of specific disorders, how we interpret and treat those disorders, or even how seemingly innate symptoms express themselves in wildly different ways. Case in point: The voices that schizophrenics hear. In the US, those voices seem to talk a lot about violence — what a person should to do themselves, or to others. In Chennai, India, on the other hand, schizophrenic patients report that voices most commonly command them to do household chores. The disturbing content comes in the form of sexual comments or directions to drink from the toilet.

What happens when Darth Vader’s lines from A New Hope are replaced by Anakin Skywalker’s lines from The Phantom Menace? Hilarity, my friends. Hilarity. Who knew Darth was still so into podracing?

(by YouTuber m deicke, via io9)

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Andy (from Toronto's excellent Makerkids) sez, "Toronto's Mini Maker Faire is back on after a 2 year gap! MakerKids is very excited to be a part of it, and we're running Toy Hacking all weekend and a Robot Battle Arena on Sunday. Bring your own battle robot, or customize one of ours on site! There are all kinds of other maker activities and projects on display at the Faire, come check it out!"

Give your unwanted old toys new life! At our Toy Hacking makerstation, take apart old toys and reassemble them into new creations! Use screwdrivers, hacksaws, drills and scissors to take them apart, and use hot glue, duct tape, screws and needle and thread to put them together again. Humpty Dumpty never had it so good!

Toy Hacking and Robot Battle at Toronto Mini Maker Faire Toronto (Thanks, Andy!)

The opalescent inshore squid (which, if you've eaten squid in the US, then you've probably eaten before) can change color just like octopuses can. In fact, scientists found that female squid can give themselves a white stripe that looks an awful lot like the testicles of their male counterparts. It's probably some kind of defensive measure, but the scientists are more interested in how the squid change color, now why. That's because the mechanism is unique, and fascinating.

Scientists have discovered a novel approach for the optical manipulation of macromolecules and biological cells. Their findings stem from challenging the idea that visible light would induce no physical effect on them since it is not absorbed. Instead they used green photon beams. With them, it is possible to perform optical manipulation of macrostructures, such as biological proteins, with greater precision than with optical tweezers made from focused laser beams.

A study into the aerodynamic performance of feathered dinosaurs has provided new insight into the evolution of bird flight. In recent years, new fossil discoveries have changed our view of the early evolution of birds and, more critically, their powers of flight. We now know about a number of small-bodied dinosaurs that had feathers on their wings as well as on their legs and tails: completely unique in the fossil record.

Infectious diseases have inflicted a great deal of damage throughout the centuries, decimating entire populations. Here are some of the worst mankind has ever seen.

Could the next generation of robotic Mars explorer come in the form of a... snake? Continue reading →

On Tuesday, the operator of the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant announced that it dumped 1,130 tons of radiation-contaminated water following a typhoon. Typhoon Man-yi hit Japan on Monday with heavy rains that flooded areas of the country and filled the enclosure currently holding toxic water that had been used to cool the broken reactors. To prevent the complex from flooding, workers ended up releasing the mix of rainwater and waste into the soil.

Read the rest of Fukushima Dumps Over 1,000 Tons of Contaminated Water After Typhoon

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You may be able to name a few DC characters who have very similar skill sets and costume themes to Marvel characters, and vice versa. Boomerang and Captain Boomerang, Swamp Thing and Man-Thing, and of course the stretchers: Mr. Fantastic, Elongated Man, and Plastic Man. But Rawlsy on DeviantArt has done a whole series depicting these pair ups in adorable best friend activities. We’ve brought some to you here, but you should check out the rest in their gallery.

(via Tumblr.)

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Pacific Fertility Center and Swirl Radio are co-hosting a seminar this Wednesday, September 18th in San Francisco,  rescheduling their seminar, and I’ll be a part of it. When it happens. Info below.

Other speakers on the roster: Michelle Meow, Founder and host of Swirl Radio; Dr. Isabelle Ryan, fertility specialist at Pacific Fertility Center; Peggy Orlin, MFT, a therapist specializing in infertility, third-party family-building, and adoption; and Deborah Wald, Esq., specialist in parentage, adoption, and assisted reproduction law, and one of the most sought-after and respected LGBT family law experts around.