Curio Cabinet / Daily Curio
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FREEUS History Daily CurioFree1 CQ
It's Flashback Friday! Enjoy this favorite from the Curio Cabinet archives in honor of Presidents’ Day Weekend.
In case you can't get enough news about U.S. Presidents… here are three tidbits about Presidents' Day, which is Monday. Number one: it's not called Presidents' Day. Technically, this day has nothing to do with Abraham Lincoln, or any other U.S. president except George Washington. It's called Washington's Birthday. Period. While a law was proposed in 1968 to switch this holiday to also celebrate Abraham Lincoln's birthday—their birthdays are 10 days apart in February—the bill failed to pass in Congress. It's only because of businesses who use this week for sales promotions that we Americans mistakenly believe it honors both Washington and Lincoln.
Number two: George Washington changed the date of his birthday later in his life, to be February 22nd. Washington was actually born on February 11, 1731, according to the then-used Julian calendar. In 1752, however, Britain forced all its colonies to adopt the Gregorian calendar, moving Washington's birthday one year and 11 days later to February 22, 1732. But since Washington and his friends weren't exactly fans of Britain's colonial orders, they didn't accept the new calendar until much later. When Americans first started celebrating Washington's birthday in 1796—during his last year as President—there was still confusion as to which date to use.
Number three: Thanks to the Uniform Monday Holiday Bill, it's impossible for Washington Day to ever fall on George Washington's actual birthday. That law, which passed in 1968, moved several holidays to always fall on Mondays so as to maximize three-day weekends for workers. Since Washington Day was officially moved to the third Monday of February, it can never fall on Washington’s actual birthday of the 22nd. Well, unless we go back to the Julian calendar.
It's Flashback Friday! Enjoy this favorite from the Curio Cabinet archives in honor of Presidents’ Day Weekend.
In case you can't get enough news about U.S. Presidents… here are three tidbits about Presidents' Day, which is Monday. Number one: it's not called Presidents' Day. Technically, this day has nothing to do with Abraham Lincoln, or any other U.S. president except George Washington. It's called Washington's Birthday. Period. While a law was proposed in 1968 to switch this holiday to also celebrate Abraham Lincoln's birthday—their birthdays are 10 days apart in February—the bill failed to pass in Congress. It's only because of businesses who use this week for sales promotions that we Americans mistakenly believe it honors both Washington and Lincoln.
Number two: George Washington changed the date of his birthday later in his life, to be February 22nd. Washington was actually born on February 11, 1731, according to the then-used Julian calendar. In 1752, however, Britain forced all its colonies to adopt the Gregorian calendar, moving Washington's birthday one year and 11 days later to February 22, 1732. But since Washington and his friends weren't exactly fans of Britain's colonial orders, they didn't accept the new calendar until much later. When Americans first started celebrating Washington's birthday in 1796—during his last year as President—there was still confusion as to which date to use.
Number three: Thanks to the Uniform Monday Holiday Bill, it's impossible for Washington Day to ever fall on George Washington's actual birthday. That law, which passed in 1968, moved several holidays to always fall on Mondays so as to maximize three-day weekends for workers. Since Washington Day was officially moved to the third Monday of February, it can never fall on Washington’s actual birthday of the 22nd. Well, unless we go back to the Julian calendar.
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FREEHumanities Daily Curio #1704Free1 CQ
Poet Geoffrey Chaucer played an integral role in creating Valentine's Day as we know it. Revered as the "Father of English literature," Chaucer is the subject of today's St. Valentine's Day Themed Thursday. According to some legends, Valentine's Day originated with ancient Rome's Lupercalia: a savage festival where nude men skinned animals and lashed young women with the pelts—to promote fertility, of course. Most historians refute the link between Valentine's Day and Lupercalia's overlapping dates as mere coincidence. The name of St. Valentine actually comes from several eponymous saints who lived in ancient Roman territories. Two of them happened to be executed on February 14th for proselytizing and performing miracles; though, both were always associated with healing—not love.
It wasn't until 1382 that St. Valentine was popularly associated with love. That's when Geoffrey Chaucer penned the poem Parlement of Foules. In it, Chaucer wrote: "For this was on St. Valentine's Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate." A few years later, the earliest known valentine gift was documented, when the imprisoned French Duke of Orléans composed sweet nothings for his wife, referring to her as his "very gentle Valentine." Literary minds followed Chaucer's lead, strengthening the bond between romance and St. Valentine's Day. William Shakespeare, for example, wrote in Act IV, Scene 5 of Hamlet: "To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day, All in the morning betime, And I a maid at your window, To be your Valentine." The practice of sending handwritten love letters on the holiday persisted until the 1800s, when the modern valentine card and chocolate box industries were born. Which are both total scams, if you ask me. Chaucer and Shakespeare knew the truth: that real tokens of affection come from the heart—not the Hallmark aisle!
Image credit & copyright: Bettmann/Corbis
Poet Geoffrey Chaucer played an integral role in creating Valentine's Day as we know it. Revered as the "Father of English literature," Chaucer is the subject of today's St. Valentine's Day Themed Thursday. According to some legends, Valentine's Day originated with ancient Rome's Lupercalia: a savage festival where nude men skinned animals and lashed young women with the pelts—to promote fertility, of course. Most historians refute the link between Valentine's Day and Lupercalia's overlapping dates as mere coincidence. The name of St. Valentine actually comes from several eponymous saints who lived in ancient Roman territories. Two of them happened to be executed on February 14th for proselytizing and performing miracles; though, both were always associated with healing—not love.
It wasn't until 1382 that St. Valentine was popularly associated with love. That's when Geoffrey Chaucer penned the poem Parlement of Foules. In it, Chaucer wrote: "For this was on St. Valentine's Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate." A few years later, the earliest known valentine gift was documented, when the imprisoned French Duke of Orléans composed sweet nothings for his wife, referring to her as his "very gentle Valentine." Literary minds followed Chaucer's lead, strengthening the bond between romance and St. Valentine's Day. William Shakespeare, for example, wrote in Act IV, Scene 5 of Hamlet: "To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day, All in the morning betime, And I a maid at your window, To be your Valentine." The practice of sending handwritten love letters on the holiday persisted until the 1800s, when the modern valentine card and chocolate box industries were born. Which are both total scams, if you ask me. Chaucer and Shakespeare knew the truth: that real tokens of affection come from the heart—not the Hallmark aisle!
Image credit & copyright: Bettmann/Corbis
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FREERelationships Daily Curio #1703Free1 CQ
Humans are one of the rare species where females outlive their reproductive age. Killer whales and Japanese aphids are two others. This fact has long befuddled biologists since it isn't explained by the golden rule of evolution: all organisms are optimized to survive so they can reproduce. In the 1960s, scientists came up with the grandmother hypothesis to explain this mystery. It posits that grandmother homo sapiens enable mothers to have more children. So women with a genetic proclivity to live longer would ultimately have more offspring carrying their genes in the form of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. But there has been scant research to back up the grandmother hypothesis—until now! This month, a study appeared in Current Biology examining a detailed record of all marriages, births, and deaths in the Saint Lawrence River Valley near Quebec since 1608. The extremely rich dataset allowed the researchers to follow women as they had children who either stayed close to home or moved away before having more children. It turned out that staying close to grandma paid off big time in family size. Women who lived 200 miles or further from mom had, on average, 1.75 fewer children than their sisters who lived in the same parish as their mother. One grandma whose kids stayed close to home had 195 grandchildren! It's a first step in proving that grandmas are useful for more than just providing unconditional love—they are walking survival guides!
Humans are one of the rare species where females outlive their reproductive age. Killer whales and Japanese aphids are two others. This fact has long befuddled biologists since it isn't explained by the golden rule of evolution: all organisms are optimized to survive so they can reproduce. In the 1960s, scientists came up with the grandmother hypothesis to explain this mystery. It posits that grandmother homo sapiens enable mothers to have more children. So women with a genetic proclivity to live longer would ultimately have more offspring carrying their genes in the form of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. But there has been scant research to back up the grandmother hypothesis—until now! This month, a study appeared in Current Biology examining a detailed record of all marriages, births, and deaths in the Saint Lawrence River Valley near Quebec since 1608. The extremely rich dataset allowed the researchers to follow women as they had children who either stayed close to home or moved away before having more children. It turned out that staying close to grandma paid off big time in family size. Women who lived 200 miles or further from mom had, on average, 1.75 fewer children than their sisters who lived in the same parish as their mother. One grandma whose kids stayed close to home had 195 grandchildren! It's a first step in proving that grandmas are useful for more than just providing unconditional love—they are walking survival guides!
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FREEBiology Daily Curio #1702Free1 CQ
Happy birthday Charles Darwin! If Darwin were still alive, he would be turning 210 today. And he would be getting a kick out of the latest Evolution vs. Creation prize fight unwittingly started last month on Twitter by @DorsaAmir, an evolutionary biologist at Boston College. In a series of eight posts, she celebrated some of humans' most bizarre vestigial features. Features like a muscle in our wrist called the palmaris longus which used to help us move around trees. And the plica semilunaris, which is the little pink area in the corner of our eye that used to be a third eyelid (capable of blinking horizontally). And the palmar grasp reflex, which causes babies to automatically grasp their parents with their hands and feet—presumably designed to grab hairy primate mommies so baby stays in tree. Plus goosebumps, tailbones, wisdom teeth, appendixes, and male nipples. Amir says the latter are not technically vestigial due to their role in embryonic development, but they deserve an honorable mention. Naturally, the "intelligent designers" and "creationists" tried to debunk Amir's post by claiming all vestigial organs have proven uses. But they were beaten down by an army of readers who a) are fans of Darwin and b) couldn't stop posting their own bizarre traits they believed to be vestigial. Such as their satellite spleens and the extra bones in their feet and their bilateral preauricular sinuses, tiny ear holes that some scientists believe are vestigial gills. Although @RSmyth3 says that's just where God finished sewing her! You can follow all the Twitter fun
here.Happy birthday Charles Darwin! If Darwin were still alive, he would be turning 210 today. And he would be getting a kick out of the latest Evolution vs. Creation prize fight unwittingly started last month on Twitter by @DorsaAmir, an evolutionary biologist at Boston College. In a series of eight posts, she celebrated some of humans' most bizarre vestigial features. Features like a muscle in our wrist called the palmaris longus which used to help us move around trees. And the plica semilunaris, which is the little pink area in the corner of our eye that used to be a third eyelid (capable of blinking horizontally). And the palmar grasp reflex, which causes babies to automatically grasp their parents with their hands and feet—presumably designed to grab hairy primate mommies so baby stays in tree. Plus goosebumps, tailbones, wisdom teeth, appendixes, and male nipples. Amir says the latter are not technically vestigial due to their role in embryonic development, but they deserve an honorable mention. Naturally, the "intelligent designers" and "creationists" tried to debunk Amir's post by claiming all vestigial organs have proven uses. But they were beaten down by an army of readers who a) are fans of Darwin and b) couldn't stop posting their own bizarre traits they believed to be vestigial. Such as their satellite spleens and the extra bones in their feet and their bilateral preauricular sinuses, tiny ear holes that some scientists believe are vestigial gills. Although @RSmyth3 says that's just where God finished sewing her! You can follow all the Twitter fun
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FREEUS History Daily Curio #1701Free1 CQ
If you're like me, you've already popped a cork to celebrate yesterday's 52nd anniversary of the ratification of the 25th Amendment! While it may not be the most monumental Amendment to the United States Constitution, it repaired a pretty big hole in the Founding Fathers' visionary document. They forgot to address the situation where the Vice President dies, assumes the Presidency, or is unable to serve. Until 1967, there was no mechanism for an empty Vice President seat to be filled—it just sat vacant until the next Inauguration Day. As a result, the office was vacant on 18 separate occasions, starting when James Madison's first Vice President (George Clinton) died in 1812. Madison's second term Vice President (Elbridge Gerry) also died! And each time the President died in office, the Vice President who succeeded him was left without a number two. This first happened to John Tyler in 1841, when William Henry Harrison died just one month into his term. It also happened to Millard Fillmore (Taylor), Andrew Johnson (Lincoln), Chester A. Arthur (Garfield), Harry S. Truman (Roosevelt) and Lyndon B. Johnson (Kennedy). Section 2 of the 25th Amendment fixed this problem by allowing the new President to nominate a Vice President, who could immediately assume office once confirmed by a majority of both houses of Congress. Section 3 (voluntary) and Section 4 (involuntary) provide a way for the Vice President to assume temporary power from the President when he/she is unfit for office. This would have come in handy when Garfield was in a coma for 80 days before succumbing to his assassin's bullet; or when Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke and was an invalid for the last eighteen months of his second term. Since its ratification, Section 3 has only been invoked three times, each time related to a Presidential colonoscopy. Section 4 has never been invoked, yet somehow it makes me feel better knowing it's an option!
If you're like me, you've already popped a cork to celebrate yesterday's 52nd anniversary of the ratification of the 25th Amendment! While it may not be the most monumental Amendment to the United States Constitution, it repaired a pretty big hole in the Founding Fathers' visionary document. They forgot to address the situation where the Vice President dies, assumes the Presidency, or is unable to serve. Until 1967, there was no mechanism for an empty Vice President seat to be filled—it just sat vacant until the next Inauguration Day. As a result, the office was vacant on 18 separate occasions, starting when James Madison's first Vice President (George Clinton) died in 1812. Madison's second term Vice President (Elbridge Gerry) also died! And each time the President died in office, the Vice President who succeeded him was left without a number two. This first happened to John Tyler in 1841, when William Henry Harrison died just one month into his term. It also happened to Millard Fillmore (Taylor), Andrew Johnson (Lincoln), Chester A. Arthur (Garfield), Harry S. Truman (Roosevelt) and Lyndon B. Johnson (Kennedy). Section 2 of the 25th Amendment fixed this problem by allowing the new President to nominate a Vice President, who could immediately assume office once confirmed by a majority of both houses of Congress. Section 3 (voluntary) and Section 4 (involuntary) provide a way for the Vice President to assume temporary power from the President when he/she is unfit for office. This would have come in handy when Garfield was in a coma for 80 days before succumbing to his assassin's bullet; or when Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke and was an invalid for the last eighteen months of his second term. Since its ratification, Section 3 has only been invoked three times, each time related to a Presidential colonoscopy. Section 4 has never been invoked, yet somehow it makes me feel better knowing it's an option!
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FREEMind + Body Daily CurioFree1 CQ
It's Flashback Friday! Enjoy this favorite from the Curio Cabinet archives in honor of Boy Scouts Day.
Band-Aids seem like a simple idea. But until they were invented in 1920, there was no good way to stop bleeding from small cuts or injuries. The invention derived from a husband's concern for his accident-prone wife. Earle Dickson was living with his new wife, Josephine. He noticed she would routinely cut or burn her hands in the kitchen. Earle was also a cotton-buyer for Johnson & Johnson. So it seemed natural to put cotton gauze on Josephine's wounds, attached with adhesive tape. Since Earle often traveled for work, he prepared ready-made bandages by placing squares of gauze along a strip of adhesive tape. Then he covered the strip with crinoline (a stiff fabric used in dresses). All Josephine had to do was cut off a length of the adhesive and wrap it over her cuts. One day Earle mentioned his invention to his boss at Johnson & Johnson, and the BAND-AID was soon a new product. Sales were poor at first, until the company had the idea to hand them out to Boy Scout troops for free. Parents across the country loved them, and sales took off. By 1924, Johnson & Johnson was manufacturing bandages of all different sizes. Band-Aids became sterilized just before WWII, allowing millions to be used during the war. As the soldiers came home, domestic sales sky-rocketed. Eventually, Earle Dickson ascended all the way to the Board of Directors of Johnson & Johnson, where he remained active until his death in 1961. By then more than $30,000,000 worth of Band-Aids were being sold each year. Band-aid recently announced they had produced their 100 billionth bandage. My kids have used a significant percentage of those over the years.
Image credit & copyright: Boy Scouts of America
It's Flashback Friday! Enjoy this favorite from the Curio Cabinet archives in honor of Boy Scouts Day.
Band-Aids seem like a simple idea. But until they were invented in 1920, there was no good way to stop bleeding from small cuts or injuries. The invention derived from a husband's concern for his accident-prone wife. Earle Dickson was living with his new wife, Josephine. He noticed she would routinely cut or burn her hands in the kitchen. Earle was also a cotton-buyer for Johnson & Johnson. So it seemed natural to put cotton gauze on Josephine's wounds, attached with adhesive tape. Since Earle often traveled for work, he prepared ready-made bandages by placing squares of gauze along a strip of adhesive tape. Then he covered the strip with crinoline (a stiff fabric used in dresses). All Josephine had to do was cut off a length of the adhesive and wrap it over her cuts. One day Earle mentioned his invention to his boss at Johnson & Johnson, and the BAND-AID was soon a new product. Sales were poor at first, until the company had the idea to hand them out to Boy Scout troops for free. Parents across the country loved them, and sales took off. By 1924, Johnson & Johnson was manufacturing bandages of all different sizes. Band-Aids became sterilized just before WWII, allowing millions to be used during the war. As the soldiers came home, domestic sales sky-rocketed. Eventually, Earle Dickson ascended all the way to the Board of Directors of Johnson & Johnson, where he remained active until his death in 1961. By then more than $30,000,000 worth of Band-Aids were being sold each year. Band-aid recently announced they had produced their 100 billionth bandage. My kids have used a significant percentage of those over the years.
Image credit & copyright: Boy Scouts of America
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FREEMusic Appreciation Daily Curio #1700Free1 CQ
The Beatles got by with a little help from their friend, George Martin. Regarded as the "Fifth Beatle," the Fab Four's genius producer is the topic of today's Fab Four Themed Thursday. A native Londoner, Martin taught himself to play the piano as a teenager. He later studied composition and orchestration at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and became the head of Parlophone Records in 1955. At Parlophone, in 1962, he was approached by newly-appointed Beatles' manager Brian Epstein, who handed him an early demo tape by the unsigned Beatles. Martin, upon listening, didn't mince words: "[It] wasn't very good... in fact it was awful." Nevertheless, he noted Epstein's confidence in the lads from Liverpool and was struck by their ambition. He signed the four and took to coaching young Paul and John along as "the boys" honed their songwriting, occasionally intervening to mend their missteps. This partnership, which developed into a professional friendship, quickly yielded a slew of chart-toppers. As an example, Martin convinced both Paul and John to reshape a sluggish blues demo into the uptempo classic, Please Please Me (1963). He also talked Paul into embellishing Yesterday (1965) with a string quartet. His most substantial additions came later, though, when Paul and John envisioned the delirious album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967). As the rival Beatles spitballed radical, and often opposing, aspirations, Martin dovetailed their jumbled whims together. He solidified the trippy song A Day in the Life—essentially a mash of two demos by John and Paul—by overlaying it with a cacophonous 41-piece orchestra. Just as impressive, Martin cut and spliced together the topsy-turvy track Strawberry Fields Forever with a pair of scissors. Needless to say, Beatlemania may never have lifted off without the Fab Four's classically-trained sherpa. Martin was never a Beatle by title—but, c'mon, he at least deserves equal status with Ringo!
The Beatles got by with a little help from their friend, George Martin. Regarded as the "Fifth Beatle," the Fab Four's genius producer is the topic of today's Fab Four Themed Thursday. A native Londoner, Martin taught himself to play the piano as a teenager. He later studied composition and orchestration at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and became the head of Parlophone Records in 1955. At Parlophone, in 1962, he was approached by newly-appointed Beatles' manager Brian Epstein, who handed him an early demo tape by the unsigned Beatles. Martin, upon listening, didn't mince words: "[It] wasn't very good... in fact it was awful." Nevertheless, he noted Epstein's confidence in the lads from Liverpool and was struck by their ambition. He signed the four and took to coaching young Paul and John along as "the boys" honed their songwriting, occasionally intervening to mend their missteps. This partnership, which developed into a professional friendship, quickly yielded a slew of chart-toppers. As an example, Martin convinced both Paul and John to reshape a sluggish blues demo into the uptempo classic, Please Please Me (1963). He also talked Paul into embellishing Yesterday (1965) with a string quartet. His most substantial additions came later, though, when Paul and John envisioned the delirious album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967). As the rival Beatles spitballed radical, and often opposing, aspirations, Martin dovetailed their jumbled whims together. He solidified the trippy song A Day in the Life—essentially a mash of two demos by John and Paul—by overlaying it with a cacophonous 41-piece orchestra. Just as impressive, Martin cut and spliced together the topsy-turvy track Strawberry Fields Forever with a pair of scissors. Needless to say, Beatlemania may never have lifted off without the Fab Four's classically-trained sherpa. Martin was never a Beatle by title—but, c'mon, he at least deserves equal status with Ringo!
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FREESTEM Daily Curio #1699Free1 CQ
Humans produce a lot of sewage. In the US alone we produce 7 to 8 million tons of biosolids—the dried and bacteria-free sludge which is the end product of sewage treatment plants. About ⅔ of American biosolids are used to boost soil quality or fertilize crops, but the rest goes into landfills. And whether the biosolids end up in the dump or the field, they still release greenhouse gases like CO2 and methane as they decompose. Humans also make a lot of bricks. Trillions are produced across the world each year. This requires a lot of energy and an incredible amount of dirt: four billion cubic yards, or enough to fill a hole the area of 1,000 football fields as deep as the Empire State Building!
These astounding numbers got a team of Australian researchers thinking: could bricks could be made from sewage? After five years of experiments, they answered their question last month in the journal Building. Yes! The team was able to make bricks that were safe and durable when consisting of 15% biosolids from the Melbourne wastewater plant. By their calculations, if every new brick in the world followed the same formula, it would eliminate all the dried poo on the planet. What's more, because the organic matter in the biosolid burns, it required half the energy per brick to bake properly. And the incinerated biosolid leaves cavities in the brick which make them lighter and also capture some of the greenhouse gases. Not to mention they are better insulators since gas is a poor thermal conductor. Brilliant! Is it wrong that I'm going to suggest my daughter test this for her science fair project?
Image credit & copyright: RMIT University
Humans produce a lot of sewage. In the US alone we produce 7 to 8 million tons of biosolids—the dried and bacteria-free sludge which is the end product of sewage treatment plants. About ⅔ of American biosolids are used to boost soil quality or fertilize crops, but the rest goes into landfills. And whether the biosolids end up in the dump or the field, they still release greenhouse gases like CO2 and methane as they decompose. Humans also make a lot of bricks. Trillions are produced across the world each year. This requires a lot of energy and an incredible amount of dirt: four billion cubic yards, or enough to fill a hole the area of 1,000 football fields as deep as the Empire State Building!
These astounding numbers got a team of Australian researchers thinking: could bricks could be made from sewage? After five years of experiments, they answered their question last month in the journal Building. Yes! The team was able to make bricks that were safe and durable when consisting of 15% biosolids from the Melbourne wastewater plant. By their calculations, if every new brick in the world followed the same formula, it would eliminate all the dried poo on the planet. What's more, because the organic matter in the biosolid burns, it required half the energy per brick to bake properly. And the incinerated biosolid leaves cavities in the brick which make them lighter and also capture some of the greenhouse gases. Not to mention they are better insulators since gas is a poor thermal conductor. Brilliant! Is it wrong that I'm going to suggest my daughter test this for her science fair project?
Image credit & copyright: RMIT University
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FREEHumanities Daily Curio #1698Free1 CQ
Happy Chinese New Year! It's the year of the pig, which is a perfect time to talk about the newest border wall making headlines in the news. Denmark is in the final planning stages to construct a five-foot-high barrier along 40 miles of its southern border with Germany. To keep out wild boars. The idea for the barrier came last year from the Danish pig industry, who is worried about an infestation of wild boar from Germany. Those animals have decimated the forests of Germany, and carry diseases which can wipe out entire populations of domestic pigs. But so far there are only 100 to 200 wild boars in Denmark. Advocates argue that this is the last chance to prevent the spread of disease and general porcine debauchery before it is too late. To counter claims that the new fence will significantly harm the area's wildlife, they have designed a barrier low enough for deer to jump over with small openings every 100 yards for foxes and hares to wriggle through. Environmentalists counter that animals like the wolf could still be affected, and—because the wall has frequent openings for roads and walking paths—it won't even stop the boars from entering the Danish motherland. Plus, boars can easily swim across the narrow fjords separating parts of Denmark from Germany. This sounds about as well conceived as that other wall we've been hearing so much about!
Happy Chinese New Year! It's the year of the pig, which is a perfect time to talk about the newest border wall making headlines in the news. Denmark is in the final planning stages to construct a five-foot-high barrier along 40 miles of its southern border with Germany. To keep out wild boars. The idea for the barrier came last year from the Danish pig industry, who is worried about an infestation of wild boar from Germany. Those animals have decimated the forests of Germany, and carry diseases which can wipe out entire populations of domestic pigs. But so far there are only 100 to 200 wild boars in Denmark. Advocates argue that this is the last chance to prevent the spread of disease and general porcine debauchery before it is too late. To counter claims that the new fence will significantly harm the area's wildlife, they have designed a barrier low enough for deer to jump over with small openings every 100 yards for foxes and hares to wriggle through. Environmentalists counter that animals like the wolf could still be affected, and—because the wall has frequent openings for roads and walking paths—it won't even stop the boars from entering the Danish motherland. Plus, boars can easily swim across the narrow fjords separating parts of Denmark from Germany. This sounds about as well conceived as that other wall we've been hearing so much about!
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FREESTEM Daily Curio #1697Free1 CQ
Having memory issues? Blame your stomach. At least that's what some neurologists are starting to believe. Until the last decade, almost nobody believed what happens in our digestive tract has much to do with anything except… well, our digestion. But the bacteria in our gut, known as our microbiome, became much more studied in the early 2000s when geneticists figured out how to sequence DNA from it. At first, they didn't consider the microbiome's impact on the brain because of what scientists call the blood-brain barrier. Only the tiniest molecules can pass through it. But then researchers at the University of California, San Diego, made a remarkable discovery. They were able to pass symptoms of a genetic mutation from one mouse to another via a fecal transplant. That is, they took the "stool" of of mice that put on weight because of a genetic mutation and transplanted it into a disease-free mouse. Which caused the second mouse to start overeating and putting on weight. This remarkable—and confusing—result caused researchers to test all kinds of other diseases for a link to gut bacteria in the mice. They found the same results with mice exhibiting symptoms of depression and autism. Recently, the same connection was found with mice prone to develop a version of Alzheimer's disease. Scientists now believe there might be a particular species of gut bacteria which somehow exacerbates Alzheimer's disease by releasing a chemical that alters how immune cells work in the brain. Figuring this one out could be a gut-check moment for medicine.
Image credit & copyright: Sacha Vega/iStock
Having memory issues? Blame your stomach. At least that's what some neurologists are starting to believe. Until the last decade, almost nobody believed what happens in our digestive tract has much to do with anything except… well, our digestion. But the bacteria in our gut, known as our microbiome, became much more studied in the early 2000s when geneticists figured out how to sequence DNA from it. At first, they didn't consider the microbiome's impact on the brain because of what scientists call the blood-brain barrier. Only the tiniest molecules can pass through it. But then researchers at the University of California, San Diego, made a remarkable discovery. They were able to pass symptoms of a genetic mutation from one mouse to another via a fecal transplant. That is, they took the "stool" of of mice that put on weight because of a genetic mutation and transplanted it into a disease-free mouse. Which caused the second mouse to start overeating and putting on weight. This remarkable—and confusing—result caused researchers to test all kinds of other diseases for a link to gut bacteria in the mice. They found the same results with mice exhibiting symptoms of depression and autism. Recently, the same connection was found with mice prone to develop a version of Alzheimer's disease. Scientists now believe there might be a particular species of gut bacteria which somehow exacerbates Alzheimer's disease by releasing a chemical that alters how immune cells work in the brain. Figuring this one out could be a gut-check moment for medicine.
Image credit & copyright: Sacha Vega/iStock
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FREERelationships Daily CurioFree1 CQ
It's Flashback Friday! Enjoy this pink favorite from the Curio Cabinet archives.
Meet LiLou. She’s San Francisco International Airport's (SFO) first-ever therapy pig. Yes, SFO has therapy animals. Called the "Wag Brigade," volunteers from a local animal rescue organization wander the terminals with dogs (and one pig) wearing big signs that say "pet me!" The idea is to provide the waiting travelers with some entertainment while soothing their anxiety. Besides being the first non-canine member of the Wag Brigade, Lilou is also the first with an Instagram account. Animal-assisted therapy, or AAT, has existed informally for centuries—though it is usually practiced with dogs and horses. The first documented use of therapy animals was at a Quaker mental health asylum, called the York Retreat, in late 18th-century England. Patients were allowed to wander the grounds along with a population of domesticated animals. Other hospitals began to follow suit when it became clear the animals had a significant impact on the morale of patients. Sigmund Freud relied heavily on his large stable of dogs, especially his chow Jofi, during his groundbreaking sessions of psychoanalysis. Eventually, the practice of animal-assisted therapy spread to nursing homes, prisons, and the military, where it is used to treat PTSD, sometimes even on the battlefield. While hard scientific evidence of its efficacy is hard to find, it's hard to argue that any damage is done to anxious people by having lots of cute animals around—even pigs! Well, except for those of us who are allergy sufferers.
It's Flashback Friday! Enjoy this pink favorite from the Curio Cabinet archives.
Meet LiLou. She’s San Francisco International Airport's (SFO) first-ever therapy pig. Yes, SFO has therapy animals. Called the "Wag Brigade," volunteers from a local animal rescue organization wander the terminals with dogs (and one pig) wearing big signs that say "pet me!" The idea is to provide the waiting travelers with some entertainment while soothing their anxiety. Besides being the first non-canine member of the Wag Brigade, Lilou is also the first with an Instagram account. Animal-assisted therapy, or AAT, has existed informally for centuries—though it is usually practiced with dogs and horses. The first documented use of therapy animals was at a Quaker mental health asylum, called the York Retreat, in late 18th-century England. Patients were allowed to wander the grounds along with a population of domesticated animals. Other hospitals began to follow suit when it became clear the animals had a significant impact on the morale of patients. Sigmund Freud relied heavily on his large stable of dogs, especially his chow Jofi, during his groundbreaking sessions of psychoanalysis. Eventually, the practice of animal-assisted therapy spread to nursing homes, prisons, and the military, where it is used to treat PTSD, sometimes even on the battlefield. While hard scientific evidence of its efficacy is hard to find, it's hard to argue that any damage is done to anxious people by having lots of cute animals around—even pigs! Well, except for those of us who are allergy sufferers.
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FREESTEM Daily Curio #1696Free1 CQ
Next time you're lost, try thinking like an ant. In today's Backward Themed Thursday, we're taking a look at the repertoire of navigational skills these hive-minded insects possess. Aside from leaving scent trails like Hansel and Gretel's breadcrumbs, ants get their bearings by unconsciously memorizing visual cues, including terrestrial surroundings and stars in the sky. Their tiny brains, the size of a pinhead, also act as pedometers. Each ant takes three-legged strides of equal proportion. Their brains, in turn, use motor signals from each step to measure how far the bug has ventured from the colony. The ant's Fitbit technique becomes unreliable, however, whenever it discovers an oversized crumb in an unfamiliar location. If it's too hefty to hold the morsel overhead, then the insect has to drag it back to the colony. But this requires moving all six legs independently and irregularly, meaning the step-counting strategy doesn't work. Instead it treks backward, heading towards the hive entirely from memory. If the ant's recall proves faulty, it drops the crumb and surveys its surroundings by walking in a circle to capture a visual panorama. Using pattern recognition, the bug ascertains its location by cross-referencing the spatial relationship of its surroundings with its foggy memory to create an improved compass frame of reference. The ant then uses the same process to relocate the crumb and continues on its way home, stopping and repeating the process anytime it gets lost. Dr. Matthias Wittlinger, who studies ants at the University of Ulm in Germany, believes these uncanny skills will have a profound influence on the technology of the future: "People are very interested in six-legged motion for robotics and use this type of locomotion to build stable robots... this is very useful." The insects' built-in Google Maps function, if applied to machines, could also mitigate errors in various delivery industries—like the food delivery company I won't name, whose GPS is miles off every time they try to find my house!
Image credit & copyright: Sarah Pfeffer/University of Ulm
Next time you're lost, try thinking like an ant. In today's Backward Themed Thursday, we're taking a look at the repertoire of navigational skills these hive-minded insects possess. Aside from leaving scent trails like Hansel and Gretel's breadcrumbs, ants get their bearings by unconsciously memorizing visual cues, including terrestrial surroundings and stars in the sky. Their tiny brains, the size of a pinhead, also act as pedometers. Each ant takes three-legged strides of equal proportion. Their brains, in turn, use motor signals from each step to measure how far the bug has ventured from the colony. The ant's Fitbit technique becomes unreliable, however, whenever it discovers an oversized crumb in an unfamiliar location. If it's too hefty to hold the morsel overhead, then the insect has to drag it back to the colony. But this requires moving all six legs independently and irregularly, meaning the step-counting strategy doesn't work. Instead it treks backward, heading towards the hive entirely from memory. If the ant's recall proves faulty, it drops the crumb and surveys its surroundings by walking in a circle to capture a visual panorama. Using pattern recognition, the bug ascertains its location by cross-referencing the spatial relationship of its surroundings with its foggy memory to create an improved compass frame of reference. The ant then uses the same process to relocate the crumb and continues on its way home, stopping and repeating the process anytime it gets lost. Dr. Matthias Wittlinger, who studies ants at the University of Ulm in Germany, believes these uncanny skills will have a profound influence on the technology of the future: "People are very interested in six-legged motion for robotics and use this type of locomotion to build stable robots... this is very useful." The insects' built-in Google Maps function, if applied to machines, could also mitigate errors in various delivery industries—like the food delivery company I won't name, whose GPS is miles off every time they try to find my house!
Image credit & copyright: Sarah Pfeffer/University of Ulm
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FREESTEM Daily Curio #1695Free1 CQ
What light through yonder window breaks? 'Tis Juliet, the Sehuencas water frog! After spending the last 10 years living in captivity in a Bolivian museum, Romeo—the world's last known Bolivian Sehuencas water frog—may have found his sun in the East. Bolivian scientists have been scouring their country's cloud forests looking for any living Sehuencas water frogs for several decades, without any sightings. The once-ubiquitous frog had been decimated by habitat loss, a killer fungus, and an invasive species of trout that eats its eggs. None had been seen in the wild in 10 years, since Romeo was discovered. Until last month. That's when a team of scientists from the museum, including chief of herpetology Teresa Camacho Badani, went on yet another expedition in search of a mate for Romeo. They had become especially alarmed last year, when he stopped making his mating call—essentially throwing in the towel for the species. Miraculously, on January 15, the group found five healthy frogs underneath a waterfall, including two females. Camacho Badani reached into the pool of water and pulled out an orange-bodied, googly-eyed frog that she instantly recognized as a Sehuencas. They found four more nearby over the next few days. So far the four frogs are being quarantined while they acclimate and are tested for disease. One of the females is too young to mate. But the museum has named the other female, of ideal mating age, Juliet. Of course. Let's hope this love story is less "star-cross'd" than the Shakespearean one!
Image credit & copyright: Alarcon / Grunbaum / museodorbigny (dpa)
What light through yonder window breaks? 'Tis Juliet, the Sehuencas water frog! After spending the last 10 years living in captivity in a Bolivian museum, Romeo—the world's last known Bolivian Sehuencas water frog—may have found his sun in the East. Bolivian scientists have been scouring their country's cloud forests looking for any living Sehuencas water frogs for several decades, without any sightings. The once-ubiquitous frog had been decimated by habitat loss, a killer fungus, and an invasive species of trout that eats its eggs. None had been seen in the wild in 10 years, since Romeo was discovered. Until last month. That's when a team of scientists from the museum, including chief of herpetology Teresa Camacho Badani, went on yet another expedition in search of a mate for Romeo. They had become especially alarmed last year, when he stopped making his mating call—essentially throwing in the towel for the species. Miraculously, on January 15, the group found five healthy frogs underneath a waterfall, including two females. Camacho Badani reached into the pool of water and pulled out an orange-bodied, googly-eyed frog that she instantly recognized as a Sehuencas. They found four more nearby over the next few days. So far the four frogs are being quarantined while they acclimate and are tested for disease. One of the females is too young to mate. But the museum has named the other female, of ideal mating age, Juliet. Of course. Let's hope this love story is less "star-cross'd" than the Shakespearean one!
Image credit & copyright: Alarcon / Grunbaum / museodorbigny (dpa)
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FREESTEM Daily Curio #1694Free1 CQ
Rockabye me, me! Two new studies, both published recently in Current Biology, document the benefits of being rocked to sleep. And not just for babies! In the first study, researchers monitored young adults while they spent three nights in a sleep lab. The first night was to acclimate; the second night they spent in a bed that was gently rocking; the third night was in a stationary bed. The results were starkly conclusive. Even subjects who were already sound sleepers fell asleep more quickly and reached non-REM sleep faster when rocking. (Non-REM sleep is the key to improved sleep quality.) The researchers also tested whether rocking improved the subject's performance on memory tests. Sure enough, after a night of rocking, their memory improved threefold on a simple random-word-pairing memory test. The researchers concluded that specific brain oscillations in their thalamocortical networks during non-REM sleep are synchronized and entrained by the bed motion. In English: the rhythm of the rocking calms the rhythm of the electrical brain waves which store long term memories during sleep. The second study, using mice instead of humans, tried to understand why rocking influences our sleep patterns. The researchers in that study concluded that the vestibular system—the sensory organs in a mammal's inner ear that control balance and spatial orientation—was responsible for translating the rocking motion into brain happiness. Whatever the reason, I'm definitely looking into this rocking bed thing!
Rockabye me, me! Two new studies, both published recently in Current Biology, document the benefits of being rocked to sleep. And not just for babies! In the first study, researchers monitored young adults while they spent three nights in a sleep lab. The first night was to acclimate; the second night they spent in a bed that was gently rocking; the third night was in a stationary bed. The results were starkly conclusive. Even subjects who were already sound sleepers fell asleep more quickly and reached non-REM sleep faster when rocking. (Non-REM sleep is the key to improved sleep quality.) The researchers also tested whether rocking improved the subject's performance on memory tests. Sure enough, after a night of rocking, their memory improved threefold on a simple random-word-pairing memory test. The researchers concluded that specific brain oscillations in their thalamocortical networks during non-REM sleep are synchronized and entrained by the bed motion. In English: the rhythm of the rocking calms the rhythm of the electrical brain waves which store long term memories during sleep. The second study, using mice instead of humans, tried to understand why rocking influences our sleep patterns. The researchers in that study concluded that the vestibular system—the sensory organs in a mammal's inner ear that control balance and spatial orientation—was responsible for translating the rocking motion into brain happiness. Whatever the reason, I'm definitely looking into this rocking bed thing!
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FREEHumanities Daily Curio #1693Free1 CQ
196 years ago this week, a ship called Kennersley Castle left the port of Leith, Scotland for the kingdom of Poyais. On board were 150 emigrants ready to start a new life in the emerald green kingdom of Poyais—a shimmering coastal nation in modern-day Nicaragua. The pilgrims had been told of Poyais' majestic mountains of redwood, cedar, and mahogany, with rocks of gold dotting the hillsides. Rare birds and delicious fruits populated the forests. Plantations of sugar, coffee, and cotton filled the valleys. The small kingdom's capital city opened onto the Atlantic, with tree-lined boulevards containing cathedrals, opera houses, and mansions of the country's merchant class. The weather was sunny and perfect year round. Acres of farmland, which the ship's passengers had purchased in London before departing, were so fertile that they barely needed farming. If this all sounds too good to be true, that's because it was.
Poyais never existed. It was the dream of a Scottish adventurer named Gregor MacGregor who had ended up commanding troops in Venezuela for the Central American conqueror Simón Bolivar. MacGregor battled with Bolivar for independence from Spanish colonial rule and eventually acquired his own territory to rule. Except it was covered with mosquitos and jungle, making it virtually uninhabited and replete of resources. So MacGregor decided to sail to London to find his own subjects and resources. During the long journey, he concocted one of the greatest scams in history. By the time his ship arrived, MacGregor had forged a letter from the King of Poyais introducing him to the King of England as the Most Illustrious Order of the Green Cross, Major in Our Regiment of Horse Guards, and Charge d'Affaires to the United Kingdom of Great Britain. Londoners went for the dream of Poyais hook, line, and sinker. Soon promotional pamphlets and books were printed. Offices selling land in Poyais were opened in London and Edinburgh. Ballad singers sang the praises of Poyais on the streets. Bank notes were drafted bearing the insignia of the Bank of Poyais. So the pilgrims were quite shocked when they arrived in Nicaragua to find nothing but hurricanes and yellow fever. Most survived, thanks to a rescue by the Governor of Honduras, a British colony at the time. MacGregor meanwhile headed to France to repeat his hoax in Paris. While he was briefly imprisoned in France and England, he was inexplicably set free and allowed to return to military service in Venezuela as a hero. It seems we have always had a soft spot for a good showman!
Image credit & copyright: John Carter Brown Library
196 years ago this week, a ship called Kennersley Castle left the port of Leith, Scotland for the kingdom of Poyais. On board were 150 emigrants ready to start a new life in the emerald green kingdom of Poyais—a shimmering coastal nation in modern-day Nicaragua. The pilgrims had been told of Poyais' majestic mountains of redwood, cedar, and mahogany, with rocks of gold dotting the hillsides. Rare birds and delicious fruits populated the forests. Plantations of sugar, coffee, and cotton filled the valleys. The small kingdom's capital city opened onto the Atlantic, with tree-lined boulevards containing cathedrals, opera houses, and mansions of the country's merchant class. The weather was sunny and perfect year round. Acres of farmland, which the ship's passengers had purchased in London before departing, were so fertile that they barely needed farming. If this all sounds too good to be true, that's because it was.
Poyais never existed. It was the dream of a Scottish adventurer named Gregor MacGregor who had ended up commanding troops in Venezuela for the Central American conqueror Simón Bolivar. MacGregor battled with Bolivar for independence from Spanish colonial rule and eventually acquired his own territory to rule. Except it was covered with mosquitos and jungle, making it virtually uninhabited and replete of resources. So MacGregor decided to sail to London to find his own subjects and resources. During the long journey, he concocted one of the greatest scams in history. By the time his ship arrived, MacGregor had forged a letter from the King of Poyais introducing him to the King of England as the Most Illustrious Order of the Green Cross, Major in Our Regiment of Horse Guards, and Charge d'Affaires to the United Kingdom of Great Britain. Londoners went for the dream of Poyais hook, line, and sinker. Soon promotional pamphlets and books were printed. Offices selling land in Poyais were opened in London and Edinburgh. Ballad singers sang the praises of Poyais on the streets. Bank notes were drafted bearing the insignia of the Bank of Poyais. So the pilgrims were quite shocked when they arrived in Nicaragua to find nothing but hurricanes and yellow fever. Most survived, thanks to a rescue by the Governor of Honduras, a British colony at the time. MacGregor meanwhile headed to France to repeat his hoax in Paris. While he was briefly imprisoned in France and England, he was inexplicably set free and allowed to return to military service in Venezuela as a hero. It seems we have always had a soft spot for a good showman!
Image credit & copyright: John Carter Brown Library
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FREEAesthetic Daily CurioFree1 CQ
It's Flashback Friday! Enjoy this toothy favorite from the Curio Cabinet archives.
You can find averages of most datasets, but can you average thousands of photographs? That's exactly what UC Berkeley researchers tried to do with nearly 38,000 high school yearbook photos from the past 100 years. The team scanned senior-class portraits and grouped them by gender and decade. Using a customized algorithm, they create a composite "average" face and expression for that period. The most striking change throughout history was the smile. Throughout the century, smiling for the camera gradually became the norm. By the 1940s, showing teeth became the norm. By the 1990s—especially for the girls—it was a gigantic grin. The algorithm also identified the different styles corresponding to each decade, especially women's hairstyles. While the composite high school photos were interesting, the real goal of the research was to apply modern data-mining techniques to photographs. Photographs contain a huge amount of historical data, but before digitization, it was impossible to look at them like large datasets. The hope is that this new research can advance the algorithms used for analyzing historical photos, helping historians identify new social and cultural trends. Check out the freakishly consistent "average" high school senior from the past eleven decades by clicking below.
It's Flashback Friday! Enjoy this toothy favorite from the Curio Cabinet archives.
You can find averages of most datasets, but can you average thousands of photographs? That's exactly what UC Berkeley researchers tried to do with nearly 38,000 high school yearbook photos from the past 100 years. The team scanned senior-class portraits and grouped them by gender and decade. Using a customized algorithm, they create a composite "average" face and expression for that period. The most striking change throughout history was the smile. Throughout the century, smiling for the camera gradually became the norm. By the 1940s, showing teeth became the norm. By the 1990s—especially for the girls—it was a gigantic grin. The algorithm also identified the different styles corresponding to each decade, especially women's hairstyles. While the composite high school photos were interesting, the real goal of the research was to apply modern data-mining techniques to photographs. Photographs contain a huge amount of historical data, but before digitization, it was impossible to look at them like large datasets. The hope is that this new research can advance the algorithms used for analyzing historical photos, helping historians identify new social and cultural trends. Check out the freakishly consistent "average" high school senior from the past eleven decades by clicking below.
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FREEHumanities Daily Curio #1692Free1 CQ
I'm starting to think "birdbrain" should be a compliment. In today's Australia Day Themed Thursday, we're investigating how the Royal Australian Army was outwitted during the Great Emu War of 1932. The bizarre conflict began when a horde of 20,000 emus made their annual migration from Australia's dry mainland to temperate grasslands closer to the coasts. Except, that year, they discovered 90,000 hectares of freshly cultivated farmlands the Australian Government had gifted to 5,000 veterans of World War I. The bird giants descended upon the crops. The farmer-veterans, unable to repel the feathered mobs with rifles, wrote for help. The government responded by deploying Major G.P.W. Meredith of the Royal Australian Artillery, along with two machine gunners and 10,000 rounds of ammunition. Meredith began his counterattack by herding 50 unwitting emus within range of a machine gun nest. But as his soldiers opened fire, the birds dispersed, minimizing casualties. Shortly after, Meredith's unit got 1,000 emus in its crosshairs; but once again the flock was light of claw and escaped with only 12 losses. By day four, the soldiers had studied their enemy enough to conclude the emus were natural guerillas who employed a clever lookout system. So they mounted a Lewis gun on a truck and barreled towards a large herd. Again, the emus gave them the slip; but not before one of their own tangled in the truck's steering system, causing the vehicle to careen into a farmer's fence. After six fruitless days of battle, Parliament recalled the sulking Meredith. He had laid quite an egg—firing 2,500 rounds of costly ammunition to kill just 200 emus. Journalists instantly dubbed the disastrous conflict the Emu War of 1932. One politician, scratching his head, asked whether "a medal was to be struck for those taking part in this war." A wry colleague replied: only if all the medals go to the emus!
Image credit & copyright: YouTube/CanWeTalk
I'm starting to think "birdbrain" should be a compliment. In today's Australia Day Themed Thursday, we're investigating how the Royal Australian Army was outwitted during the Great Emu War of 1932. The bizarre conflict began when a horde of 20,000 emus made their annual migration from Australia's dry mainland to temperate grasslands closer to the coasts. Except, that year, they discovered 90,000 hectares of freshly cultivated farmlands the Australian Government had gifted to 5,000 veterans of World War I. The bird giants descended upon the crops. The farmer-veterans, unable to repel the feathered mobs with rifles, wrote for help. The government responded by deploying Major G.P.W. Meredith of the Royal Australian Artillery, along with two machine gunners and 10,000 rounds of ammunition. Meredith began his counterattack by herding 50 unwitting emus within range of a machine gun nest. But as his soldiers opened fire, the birds dispersed, minimizing casualties. Shortly after, Meredith's unit got 1,000 emus in its crosshairs; but once again the flock was light of claw and escaped with only 12 losses. By day four, the soldiers had studied their enemy enough to conclude the emus were natural guerillas who employed a clever lookout system. So they mounted a Lewis gun on a truck and barreled towards a large herd. Again, the emus gave them the slip; but not before one of their own tangled in the truck's steering system, causing the vehicle to careen into a farmer's fence. After six fruitless days of battle, Parliament recalled the sulking Meredith. He had laid quite an egg—firing 2,500 rounds of costly ammunition to kill just 200 emus. Journalists instantly dubbed the disastrous conflict the Emu War of 1932. One politician, scratching his head, asked whether "a medal was to be struck for those taking part in this war." A wry colleague replied: only if all the medals go to the emus!
Image credit & copyright: YouTube/CanWeTalk
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FREEMind + Body Daily Curio #1691Free1 CQ
The average American man weighs 195.7 pounds. Which was almost exactly the requirement for entry into the prestigious Fat Men's Clubs of one hundred years ago: 200 pounds. Back then, being portly was a sign of wealth and power. Fat Men's Clubs are believed to have started exactly 150 years ago, when the Fat Men's Association of New York City formed in 1869. The clubs conducted elaborate weigh-in ceremonies, followed by large meals, followed by Olympic-style games of jumping and racing, followed by even larger meals. Soon the clubs were springing up all over: Nevada, Utah, Tennessee, Belgrade, and Britain. Although, the Les Cents Kilos (One Hundred Kilos) club in Paris, founded in 1897, never quite got off the ground. These fat clubs celebrated the last time in human history when the more food one consumed, the more power one had—before the many health dangers with obesity were fully understood. Of course, women were held to a different standard at the turn of the 20th century. While "roundness" in women was attractive and a sign of fertility, unlimited female girth was not considered okay. Which is probably why the few Fat Women's Clubs that started never gained traction. Eventually, the Fat Men's Clubs also lost steam. At the last meeting of the New England Fat Men's Club in 1924, only 38 members showed up and none of them met the 200-pound weight requirement. It was the turn of a new chapter in American body image, one soon to be celebrated by Hollywood. Before long there were Barbie dolls with 16-inch waists, health foods, and cigarette diets. So it's somewhat ironic that kale chips and 27-pound tubs of Costco mac n' cheese coexist in today's America. United we sit!
The average American man weighs 195.7 pounds. Which was almost exactly the requirement for entry into the prestigious Fat Men's Clubs of one hundred years ago: 200 pounds. Back then, being portly was a sign of wealth and power. Fat Men's Clubs are believed to have started exactly 150 years ago, when the Fat Men's Association of New York City formed in 1869. The clubs conducted elaborate weigh-in ceremonies, followed by large meals, followed by Olympic-style games of jumping and racing, followed by even larger meals. Soon the clubs were springing up all over: Nevada, Utah, Tennessee, Belgrade, and Britain. Although, the Les Cents Kilos (One Hundred Kilos) club in Paris, founded in 1897, never quite got off the ground. These fat clubs celebrated the last time in human history when the more food one consumed, the more power one had—before the many health dangers with obesity were fully understood. Of course, women were held to a different standard at the turn of the 20th century. While "roundness" in women was attractive and a sign of fertility, unlimited female girth was not considered okay. Which is probably why the few Fat Women's Clubs that started never gained traction. Eventually, the Fat Men's Clubs also lost steam. At the last meeting of the New England Fat Men's Club in 1924, only 38 members showed up and none of them met the 200-pound weight requirement. It was the turn of a new chapter in American body image, one soon to be celebrated by Hollywood. Before long there were Barbie dolls with 16-inch waists, health foods, and cigarette diets. So it's somewhat ironic that kale chips and 27-pound tubs of Costco mac n' cheese coexist in today's America. United we sit!
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FREEArt Appreciation Daily Curio #1690Free1 CQ
Everybody knows the Mona Lisa stares at you. Except she doesn't! Since the 1960s, perceptual psychologists, have described the Mona Lisa effect as the phenomenon of feeling like the subject of a painting or photograph is watching you as you walk around the artwork. It occurs when subjects look straight ahead from the image at an angle of between zero and five degrees. However, it isn't possible to measure the exact gaze-direction of a painted subject. So researchers from Bielefeld University in Germany recently set out to estimate Mona Lisa's eye angle. They surveyed dozens of subjects as they sat in front of a high-fidelity digital image of the painting, zoomed in at different magnitudes, and with the subjects sitting at varying distances from the screen. They asked the subjects to point on a folding measuring stick to the exact point where they thought Mona Lisa was looking. After 2,000 measurements, they determined that Mona LIsa is gazing from about 35 cm inside "pictorial space" to a point that is 14.4 degrees to the viewer's right side in "real space." That's way outside the five degree angle where the Mona Lisa effect is real. In other words, Mona Lisa doesn't actually create the Mona Lisa effect. D'oh! But don't despair, da Vinci fans: Leonardo's masterpiece still exhibits the equally enigmatic Mona Lisa smile. That's the illusion that she stops smiling when you look directly at her mouth. Researchers say Leonardo's techniques could be useful for designing robots and 3D avatars that can engage more normally with humans. Grazie mille Mr. Roboto!
Everybody knows the Mona Lisa stares at you. Except she doesn't! Since the 1960s, perceptual psychologists, have described the Mona Lisa effect as the phenomenon of feeling like the subject of a painting or photograph is watching you as you walk around the artwork. It occurs when subjects look straight ahead from the image at an angle of between zero and five degrees. However, it isn't possible to measure the exact gaze-direction of a painted subject. So researchers from Bielefeld University in Germany recently set out to estimate Mona Lisa's eye angle. They surveyed dozens of subjects as they sat in front of a high-fidelity digital image of the painting, zoomed in at different magnitudes, and with the subjects sitting at varying distances from the screen. They asked the subjects to point on a folding measuring stick to the exact point where they thought Mona Lisa was looking. After 2,000 measurements, they determined that Mona LIsa is gazing from about 35 cm inside "pictorial space" to a point that is 14.4 degrees to the viewer's right side in "real space." That's way outside the five degree angle where the Mona Lisa effect is real. In other words, Mona Lisa doesn't actually create the Mona Lisa effect. D'oh! But don't despair, da Vinci fans: Leonardo's masterpiece still exhibits the equally enigmatic Mona Lisa smile. That's the illusion that she stops smiling when you look directly at her mouth. Researchers say Leonardo's techniques could be useful for designing robots and 3D avatars that can engage more normally with humans. Grazie mille Mr. Roboto!
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FREEHumanities Daily CurioFree1 CQ
Martin Luther King Jr. Day! We know MLK as one of the most inspiring and impactful leaders of modern times. He was also a huge Star Trek fan. In fact, it was the only TV show he and his wife Coretta allowed their children to watch—because it showed black and white characters working together as equals on the crew of the Enterprise. But King was more than just a fan; he saved Lieutenant Uhura. After the first season, the African-American actress who played Lieutenant Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) told the producers she was leaving the show. That weekend she attended a NAACP fundraiser, and was told a "superfan" wanted to meet her. It was Martin Luther King, Jr. When he found out she was leaving the show, he told her she couldn't. It was simply too important to the Civil Rights movement, because Lieutenant Uhura had "opened a door for the world to see" African Americans as capable contributors and leaders. Nichols stayed, appearing in over 60 more TV episodes and the first six movies. Whoopi Goldberg and Ronald McNair, the second African-American in space, are among many who credited Lieutenant Uhura with first showing them a future where blacks and whites could work as equals. "Momma," Goldberg remembers saying when she first saw Star Trek, "there's a black lady on TV and she ain't no maid!" Here's to hoping that MLK's ideals live long and prosper.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day! We know MLK as one of the most inspiring and impactful leaders of modern times. He was also a huge Star Trek fan. In fact, it was the only TV show he and his wife Coretta allowed their children to watch—because it showed black and white characters working together as equals on the crew of the Enterprise. But King was more than just a fan; he saved Lieutenant Uhura. After the first season, the African-American actress who played Lieutenant Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) told the producers she was leaving the show. That weekend she attended a NAACP fundraiser, and was told a "superfan" wanted to meet her. It was Martin Luther King, Jr. When he found out she was leaving the show, he told her she couldn't. It was simply too important to the Civil Rights movement, because Lieutenant Uhura had "opened a door for the world to see" African Americans as capable contributors and leaders. Nichols stayed, appearing in over 60 more TV episodes and the first six movies. Whoopi Goldberg and Ronald McNair, the second African-American in space, are among many who credited Lieutenant Uhura with first showing them a future where blacks and whites could work as equals. "Momma," Goldberg remembers saying when she first saw Star Trek, "there's a black lady on TV and she ain't no maid!" Here's to hoping that MLK's ideals live long and prosper.