Joseph Bologne was the son of French planter Georges Bologne and an enslaved woman named Nanon. He was was a champion fencer, virtuoso violinist, and conductor of the leading symphony orchestra in Paris. You can read more about him here.
Charles-Geneviève-Louis-Auguste-André-Timothée d'Éon de Beaumont, Chevalier d'Éon, was a French spy, diplomat, and veteran of the Seven Years’ War. D'Éon appeared publicly as a man and pursued masculine occupations for 49 years; after 1777, she lived for 33 more years as a woman. You can read more about her here.
Und die Erklärung, wieso man das tut, ist absolut großartig:
The maintainer of man is a good friend of mine, and one day six years ago I jokingly said to him that if you invoke man after midnight it should print "gimme gimme gimme", because of the Abba song called "Gimme gimme gimme a man after midnight":
So FCC chairman Ajit Pai has announced a plan to roll back net neutrality rules called “Restoring Internet Freedom.” I think we all know that this isn’t about freedom in the sense of allowing people to access the internet freely. Or viewing or creating whatever content they please free from tracking or throttling. It’s not about personal freedom at all.
Ajit Pai (formerly of Verizon) being sworn in by outgoing FCC Chairman Genachowski (before taking a job at the Carlyle Group)
What it’s about is the freedom of network providers to do whatever the heck they want. That may FEEL like personal freedom to Pai since he worked for Verizon prior to taking on this role with the FCC. But for the 7 billion people on Earth who benefit from net neutrality (real internet freedom), this is a huge step in the wrong direction.
Will this be the death of internet innovation? When’s the last time a billionaire did something innovative? Uncovering tax loopholes doesn’t count! Can we reasonably look to Verizon to fix the many issues that we’re seeing on the web today? As Google/Youtube fess up to how messed up their content has become and vow to fix it, do you really believe that they can or will? What about Facebook and their complete incompetence during the last election? Will billionaires fix those problems?
I’m betting on the coder sitting in her apartment dreaming up a better way to serve age appropriate videos to kids. I’m betting on groups of computer science undergrads brainstorming an open protocol for social networking. But will Verizon and the rapidly consolidating group of internet network behemoths allow those ideas to thrive on THEIR internet? If not, we’ll be talking “Restoring Internet Freedom” in earnest.
"This is one of the first clear-cut genetic mutations in human beings that acts upon aging and aging-related disease," Dr. Douglas Vaughan, a medical researcher at Northwestern University, told Newsweek. schwit1 quotes Science Alert:
As far as we know, it looks like the only community in the world known to harbour it is an Old Order Amish community living in Indiana... Vaughan's team tested 177 people from the Amish community of Berne, Indiana, and found 43 people with one mutated SERPINE1 gene copy. Compared to the general Amish population, these 43 people had a 10 percent longer lifespan, and 10 percent longer telomeres (the DNA-protecting structures at the ends of our chromosomes that unravel when the cells reach the end of their lifespans). They also showed lower incidence of diabetes and lower insulin fasting levels. On top of that, the study showed a small indication of lower blood pressure and potentially more flexible blood vessels.
"For the first time we are seeing a molecular marker of aging (telomere length), a metabolic marker of aging (fasting insulin levels) and a cardiovascular marker of aging (blood pressure and blood vessel stiffness) all tracking in the same direction in that these individuals were generally protected from age-related changes," said Vaughan. These people also had 50 percent lower PAI-1 levels than average. It's not known exactly how PAI-1 contributes to aging, but it does play a role in a process called cellular senescence. This is when cells are no longer able to replicate, so they just go dormant. This contributes to the effects of aging.
Enlarge / An artist’s impression of the oddly shaped interstellar asteroid `Oumuamua. (credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser)
Since mid-October, the astronomy community has been buzzing about what might be our Solar System’s first confirmed interstellar visitor. An automated telescope spotted an object that appeared as if it had been dropped on the Solar System from above, an angle that suggests it arrived from elsewhere. Now, a team of astronomers has rushed out a paper that describes the object's odd properties and gives it the name “1I/2017 U1 ‘Oumuamua.” In Hawaiian, ‘Oumuamua roughly means “first messenger,” and the 1I indicates that it’s the first interstellar object.
‘Oumuamua was first spotted on October 19 by the Pan-STARRS1 automated telescope system. Pan-STARRS1 turned out to have captured images of the object the day previously, but the automated analysis software hadn’t identified it. Further images over the next few days allowed researchers to refine its travel through our Solar System, confirming that ‘Oumuamua was making the most extreme approach toward the inner Solar System of any object we’ve ever seen. In essence, it appeared to have been dropped onto the Solar System from above, plunging between the Sun and the orbit of Mercury. It was also moving extremely quickly.
The Solar System was formed from a flattened disk of material, and all of the planets orbit roughly in the plane of that disk. Smaller objects, like dwarf planets and comets, may take somewhat more erratic approaches with orbits tilted out of that plane, but they still roughly aligned with it. We had literally never seen anything like ‘Oumuamua.
There are certain jobs I’d rather women didn’t do, not because I feel they can’t, or shouldn’t be allowed to if they want, but because I’d rather spare them the experience.
Scrotal Ultrasound Technician is one such job.
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Thank you, Incidental Comics readers, for all your support this year! It's been amazing to see the publication of my first book, first calendar, and many other exciting projects. I'm thankful I get to make comics that people all over the world can read and enjoy.
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