SciShow explains 'How the Fall of the Roman Empire Made Animals Smaller' for the Ides of March

Beware the Ides of March! Instead of the Sunday entertainment feature, I'm continuing the theme of death and destruction in the Roman world with SciShow explaining How the Fall of the Roman Empire Made Animals Smaller.

There’s a saying that, when Rome falls, the whole world will fall. Which frankly seems a little melodramatic and egotistical on the part of the Romans. Except that they kinda had a point when you realize the fall of Rome affected basically everything in Europe up to and including /the body size of wild animals/. Here's how the fall of the Roman Empire made animals smaller.

Hosted by: Jaida Elcock (she/her)

The last time I included the blog's description in an entry was PBS Terra lists '5 Warning Signs of Collapse We're Ignoring' plus presidential pets for Presidents Day.

When I created this blog, I called it "A blog about societal, cultural, and civilizational collapse, and how to stave it off or survive it." I've shifted away from that, making this more "A blog about sustainability with a science fiction slant and a Detroit perspective," as it says on the Crazy Eddie's Motie News Facebook page (if you're still on Facebook, please follow), but I've never changed the description here after 15 years. That's because, deep down, I still believe in the mission I set for myself in March 2011.

SciShow's video demonstrates that the collapse of the Western Roman Empire affected not only humans and their domesticated animals, but also the wild animals, mostly mammals, around them. Welcome to one of Commoner's Laws, "Everything is connected to everything else."

I turn to The History Guy for a lesson about the significance of the date, Beware the Ides of March.


He likes alliteration even more than I do! Speaking of alliteration, I can't escape entertainment entirely today, so I'm sharing Vehicle (Remastered) by Ides of March.



Vehicle (Remastered) · Ides Of March
That's a wrap for today's sort of holiday. Stay tuned for an educational post I can share next month followed by a celebration of St. Patrick's Day.

SciShow asks 'What Will Humanity Leave Behind?'

This was originally "A blog about societal, cultural, and civilizational collapse," and I haven't changed that description even as my focus has changed since 2011. I'm returning to the original theme as I feature SciShow asking What Will Humanity Leave Behind?

When humans are gone, nature will reclaim our cities and break down much of what we've built. But some of the things we've made will last much longer than others, and they're probably not the things you'd expect.

I used to work with zebra mussels, so I'm surprised I've only mentioned them once here and that was a dozen years ago. It was about time I mentioned the invasive species again and what it's done to the Great Lakes ecosystem. That counts as a sign of human presence, because the bivalves wouldn't be in North America without human assistance.

While I'm not surprised that glass and ceramics will last millions of years — one of the stories I tell my students is about quartz grains being eroded and redeposited a dozen times over a billion years, and glass is made from quartz — finding out that bronze survives for thousands of years is something that I should have realized long ago. After all, the Bronze Age in Europe ended nearly 3,000 years ago, and the bronze artifacts from then have survived all that time.

Something else I expected as a sign of human presence was plastic. Hank Green didn't list that, but he did discuss spheroidal carbonaceous particles. So there is something special about the soot we produce from burning fossil fuels!

That's a wrap for today's collapse-themed entry. Stay tuned as I return to entertainment tomorrow.

Storied asks 'Why Does A Ghost Whale Terrorize The Japanese Coast?' An Earth Month ghost story

Happy Earth Week! I'm kicking off my observance with an unconventional choice, Monstrum on PBS Digital's Storied asking Why Does A Ghost Whale Terrorize The Japanese Coast?

Lore of the ghostly whale skeleton, Bake-kujira, brings an ominous twist to stories of the revered marine giants in Japan. The entity is an omen of misfortune that emerged during the rise of industrial whaling in the 20th century. Is it a simple ghost story, or a warning of ecological collapse? And is Bake-kujira’s legend as relevant now as ever?

Watching this video reminded me of the retirement plans I shared in Marche du Nain Rouge, history and revelry.

One of the projects I'm considering pursuing in my retirement is a horror mystery series set in Oakland County. I thought I would ignore the Nain Rouge because it was concerned with Detroit proper, not the suburbs. Hearing that the Nain Rouge protects the suburbs as well as the city means that I might have to incorporate the imp in my stories. Hmm. Maybe in the sequel. I have another supernatural entity planned to bedevil my protagonists in the first collection of tales.

A vengeful whale spirit is exactly the kind of antagonist I'm looking for, except that my readers would think it's out of place in Michigan. Not completely, as three Quaternary, likely Pleistocene, whale fossils have been found in the Great Lakes State.

In 1927 excavations for a new schoolhouse in Oscoda turned up a Late Pleistocene fossil rib that may have belonged to a bowhead whale of the genus Balaena. The specimen is now catalogued as UMMP 11008.[15] 1930 saw Hussey publish the first scientific paper on the Michiganian whale fossils curated by the University of Michigan Museum of Paleontology.
...
The 1950s saw paleontological attention return to Michigan's whale fossils. In 1953, Handley tentatively referred the rib discovered in Oscoda during the 1927 schoolhouse excavation to the genus Balaena.[15] He also reported the discovery of an Arkonan-aged[clarification needed (possibly referring to Thedford-Arkona region)] rorqual rib of the genus Balaenoptera. The fossil had been discovered upright in the sand during the excavation of a cellar in Genesee County.[18] Handley also reported the discovery of another walrus fossil, a skull catalogued as UMMP 32453 found in a Mackinac Island gravel deposit.[13] Handley also reported the discovery of sperm whale ribs and a vertebra from Lenawee County.

While I've read at least one author explain these findings as the result of early Native Americans transporting them from the coast, I think it's just as likely, if not more so, that the whales swam up the early Mississippi or St. Laurence into the forerunners of the Great Lakes. Whales swim into rivers from time to time, and it usually ends poorly for them.

ETA: It turns out that these whale specimens are too recent to for that to have happened.

Last week the results of study found the township bones were baleen whale vertebrae and radiocarbon dated the age at 220 +/- 30 BP (Before Present), as such, it is similar to a previous date of 190 years old for a sperm whale bone found in Michigan. The baleen whales have baleen instead of teeth which they use to collect shrimp-like krill, plankton and small fish from the sea. The report also included that all the dated whale bones found to date from Michigan are far too young for whales to have entered the Great Lakes. Bones of a sperm whale, finback whale, and a right whale where reported found in Michigan were dated between 190 and 810 years old, John Zawiskie, the Curator of Earth and Life Sciences at Cranbrook Institute of Science commented on the results of the whale bone discovery.
“Whales could only have entered the Great Lakes when the sea level was higher during glacial and post-glacial times more than 10,000 years ago,” said Zawiskie. “The whales are all too young – the oldest are only 800 years old.”
Why the bones were found in the township is uncertain, however one suggestion is that the bones may have been brought to Michigan by Hopewell culture people from the Atlantic coast, or maybe even a long running elaborate hoax, where someone else placed the whale bones on the landscape.
“The Hopewell people lived on the Atlantic Coast and they may have brought the whale bones to Michigan as they brought many shells and other marine items with them,” added Zawiskie. “It is unlikely that the Hopewell people scattered whale bones across Michigan and of course the recent find is only 220 years old – the other whale ages range from 190 to 800 years old.”

Darn. On the other hand, these findings make it more likely for whale spirits to haunt Michigan, not less, as they've been moved relatively recently. Just the same, I think I might refer to the legend of Bake-kujira, but choose another angry animal apparition for my antagonist, like a mammoth or mastodon. Time to look for African and south Asian stories of ghost elephants as inspiration.

Enough weirdness. I already have more conventional videos for tomorrow's celebration of Earth Day. Stay tuned.

SciShow lists '10 Things You Didn't Know About Pompeii' for the Ides of March

Beware the Ides of March! I'm continuing the theme of death and destruction in the Roman world with a sequel to last year's NOVA warns of 'The Next Pompeii' for the Ides of March, SciShow's list of 10 Things You Didn't Know About Pompeii.

You've heard of Pompeii and the volcano that wiped it out, but how much do you REALLY know about this incredibly famous place? Turns out there are a lot of mysteries that researchers are still studying, from the timing and causes of the deaths, to the geology of Mt. Vesuvius, and even stretching back to the origins of archaeology. So let's dig down through the ashes and get to the bottom of the coolest things you didn't know about Pompeii!

Hosted by: Hank Green (he/him)

Time to list what I learned from this video. First, I knew about Herculaneum being another city destroyed by Vesuvius, but this is the first I recall hearing of Oplontis and Stabiae. Second, while I knew that Vesuvius was a stratovolcano or composite cone, I didn't know the name of the previous volcano on the site, Mount Somma. Third, I didn't know about the centuries of eruptions, landslides, and earthquakes before 79 C.E., but I'm not surprised. I am a geologist, after all, and those are par for the course at a convergent plate boundary like the one that extends along the Italian Peninsula. Fourth, I didn't know that the eruption's time of year was not definitively known. Fifth, I think I'd heard that the excavations of Pompeii were the beginnings of modern archeology, but I needed to have that knowledge reinforced. I definitely didn't know the details! That written, it didn't occur to me that those were casts of the remains in the ash, not the remains themselves, which is the sixth subject I didn't already know. Seventh, the DNA studies are new, so I definitely hadn't heard of their results before, especially that one of the victims was suffering from tuberculosis. That shouldn't be surprising; tuberculosis is a very old disease. All these mean I learned a lot of new things today, making it a great day, despite its dire associations.

I close with a recreation of the eruption to the song for today, Siouxsie and the Banshees - Cities in Dust - Pompeii.


I didn't know I wanted this, but now I that I've seen it, it's perfect, other than using the August date, which is no longer supported by the physical evidence. Knowledge marches on.

Stay tuned for a break in the string of holidays as I present the Sunday entertainment feature. Awards show results, anyone?

'The REAL Science of Groundhogs' for an early Groundhog Day

Groundhog Day is really tomorrow, but it's also Sunday, when I post my entertainment features, so I'm celebrating early with SciShow describing The REAL Science of Groundhogs.

Groundhogs are famous in North America for "predicting" when spring will come (and also that Bill Murray movie). But while they might make for terrible meteorologists, they actually play a valuable role in several other scientific fields.

Even though I am a paleontologist who studies the Pleistocene, I hadn't heard of the 16,000 year old stone tools from the Meadowcroft Rockshelter until I watched this video. That means I learned something new, making today a good day. That written, it's not a complete surprise, as I mentioned "Early peopling of the Americas steps closer to acceptance" as a runner-up in Weight loss drugs Science Magazine's Breakthrough of the Year for 2023. Science Magazine wrote the following about the discovery.

In 2021, researchers working in White Sands National Park in New Mexico announced a potentially paradigm shifting discovery: unmistakable human footprints, left on the muddy shore of an ancient lake as early as 21,000 to 23,000 years ago. The team based those dates on seeds from a grassy aquatic plant that were found in layers surrounding the footprints and dated by radiocarbon. But there was room for doubt, because the seeds could have absorbed ancient carbon from sediments dissolved in the lake water, boosting their measured age. So the White Sands team redated the footprints using pollen from land plants and quartz grains embedded in sediments between and below the tracks. The new dates line up perfectly with the original paper, they reported in October.

If the dates are correct, the prints were left at the peak of the last ice age, when glaciers covered Canada, suggesting humans must have made the journey into the Americas before those ice sheets formed.

The new work has persuaded some initial skeptics. Others still wonder whether wind or erosion might have deposited older sediments on top of the footprints, making them appear more ancient than they are. But all are eager for more clues about the White Sands people, such as a hearth or stone tools, which could confirm their presence as well as provide hints about their culture. This year’s redating could spark a re-evaluation of other contested sites and will likely send archaeologists racing to excavate other ice age sediments in search of confirmation—or even more surprises.

NOVA PBS Official uploaded a video about this finding, Humans May Have Lived in North America Earlier Than Thought.

Scattered seeds help reveal when ancient humans first left footprints in North America.

Ten thousand years earlier than the previous accepted date — wow!

I also learned new things about the importance of groundhogs in health research, including hepatitis B, but the gag referencing the Groundhog Day movie overshadowed them. Thanks to the pandemic, I already know what living in a time loop feels like.

Since there is no new episode of Saturday Night Live tonight, I plan on covering GRAMMY Awards tomorrow. Stay tuned.

PBS Eons describes 'The Hazy Evolution of Cannabis' for 4/20

Happy 4/20! Instead of blogging about marijuana legalization, I'm sharing The Hazy Evolution of Cannabis by PBS Eons — science!

How did such a strange plant like cannabis come to be in the first place? When and where did we first domesticate it? And why oh why does it get us high?

Congratulations on telling the smartest stoner jokes on YouTube I've encountered so far. Also, I knew about the relationship between hops and Cannabis my senior year of college, when I looked through Munz and Keck's A California Flora and Supplement and found them together in Moraceae. That bit of trivia impressed my friends 40+ years ago. They have since been moved to Cannabaceae, where they are, as the video states, sister genera. I think that would have impressed my friends even more.

That's it for today's post. Stay tuned for the Sunday entertainment feature followed by Earth Day.

NOVA examines the 'Great American Eclipse'

I concluded Earthquake, eclipse, and other news on 'SNL' by telling my readers to stay tuned for today's eclipse! In the spirit of NOVA warns of 'The Next Pompeii' for the Ides of March, last month's most popular entry posted during March 2023, I'm embedding Great American Eclipse | Full Documentary | NOVA | PBS.

Explore the spectacular cosmic phenomenon of a total solar eclipse. In April 2024, the Moon’s shadow is sweeping from Texas to Maine, as the U.S. witnesses its last total solar eclipse until 2044. This extraordinary astronomical event is plunging locations in the path of totality into darkness for more than four minutes – nearly twice as long as the last American eclipse in 2017. Learn how to watch an eclipse safely and follow scientists as they work to unlock secrets of our Sun – from why its atmosphere is hundreds of times hotter than its surface, to what causes solar storms and how we might one day predict them.

That was everything I was hoping it would be and more — lots of science, history, and even archeology!

NOVA has more in NOVA goes eclipse hunting!.

Join members of the NOVA team for a behind the scenes look at the preparations being made in Kerrville, TX for the April 8 total solar eclipse!

Nothing like asking a NASA scientist!

Watch the eclipse as it happens in NOVA Solar Eclipse Livestream.

On April 8, 2024, millions of Americans will witness the rare event of a solar eclipse that will cross the continental United States. Join NOVA for a live stream prior to the eclipse where we will be joined by NASA scientists at the Kerrville Eclipse Festival in Texas!
Learn how to watch an eclipse safely, discover what eclipses can reveal to scientists about the secrets of the Sun, and hear from the eclipse festival attendees.

You can watch the eclipse here. I'm less than an hour away from totality, as long as there isn't a traffic jam on the way, so I'm planning on traveling there to see it in person. Wish me a safe journey!

Like the post I'm modeling this one on, I'm ending with a relevant song, Bonnie Tyler - Total Eclipse of the Heart - Symphonic Orchestra 430 Broken Peach - 20th Century Rock.

Increíble actuación de Bonnie Tyler, Symphonic Orchestra 430 bajo la batuta de Carlos Rodríguez, y Broken Peach, interpretando Total Eclipse of the Heart, en la Gala 18 Aniversario que tuvo lugar el 11 de junio de 2017 en el Auditorio Mar de Vigo.

Translation: "Incredible performance by Bonnie Tyler, Symphonic Orchestra 430 under the baton of Carlos Rodríguez, and Broken Peach, performing Total Eclipse of the Heart, at the 18th Anniversary Gala that took place on June 11, 2017 at the Mar de Vigo Auditorium."

Yes, Broken Peach are Bonnie Tyler's backup singers. Otherwise, I wouldn't have used this song — too on the nose.

See you all later and enjoy the eclipse!

Monstrum on 'The Golden Age of Movie Monsters' for Halloween

Happy Halloween! I'm keeping my promise to blog about monsters today. I begin with Monstrum exploring The Golden Age of Movie Monsters.

Some monsters call to mind very specific images. Their iconic on-screen personas overshadow their earlier histories. I’m talking about: Frankenstein and his Creature, Dracula, the Invisible Man, the Wolf Man, the Mummy. Why is this? Universal Pictures. These famous Monster faces inspired decades of Halloween costumes, and make up a distinctive brand of horror that defined early Hollywood cinema.

I enjoyed Dr. Z's history of Universal Pictures horror films and learned a lot about how the Hayes Code and Universal's new ownership made for slightly more subdued and definitely more recycled horror films after the mid 1930s. Those did not make the studio's monsters any less iconic. Universal Studios' theme parks still use them, more than 90 years after Dracula and Frankenstein first appeared on the silver screen.

On the other hand, the attempt to revive the monsters in the 21st Century have been uneven. On the one hand, The Invisible Man won Best Horror Movie at both the Critics Choice Super Awards and the Saturn Awards, while Elisabeth Moss won Best Actress in a Horror Movie at the former and Best Actress in a Film at the latter. I even voted for her. On the other hand, 2017's The Mummy earned seven Razzie nominations and Tom Cruise the Razzie for Worst Actor. Yikes!

Speaking of mummies, Monstrum's next video was Egyptian Mummies: From Sacred Vessels to Scary Undead.

Mummification was a sacred, transformative practice in Ancient Egypt - a ritual process that made one’s body and soul fit for existence in the afterlife. It begs the question: when and why did the Mummy become the popular movie monster that we are so familiar with today?

That was fascinating, as well as a worthy sequel to the Universal Monsters video.

I close with "The Mummy" Inspired Cocktail | 31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN by Secret of the Booze.

RECIPE

THE MUMMY

2 oz devil’s cut
1 oz. honey whiskey
1 cup hibiscus tea
Dry ice

Drink responsibly!

That's it for Halloween, but spooky season continues for one more day with Day of the Dead. I'm feeling like continuing with Monstrum's examination of Mexican monsters. Stay tuned to see if I follow through with that thought.

'SNL' lampoons 'Fox & Friends' reacting to the midterm election results

It's time to return to election coverage with Fox & Friends Cold Open - SNL.

The hosts of Fox & Friends (Mikey Day, Heidi Gardner, Bowen Yang) interview Kari Lake (Cecily Strong) and Donald Trump (James Austin Johnson) about the 2022 midterm elections.

I'm pleased that Cecily Strong returned with her Kari Lake impersonation that she debuted in 'SNL' shares scary news for Halloween 2022. She satirized Lake's weather vane reaction to the election results perfectly. Too bad that her fans may not see this impression again unless Lake actually gets a job on Fox News or some other right-wing outlet. That may be bad news for TV journalism, but it would be great news for comedy.

Speaking of Fox News, seeing them and the rest of NewsCorp's remaining properties turn against The Former Guy reminds me of what I wrote in Noah, Meyers, Colbert, and Kimmel take closer looks at the red wave that wasn't: "I hope the Republican Party finally abandons Trump, but I have my doubts."

'SNL' continued on this theme along with more election coverage in Weekend Update: Democrats Win Senate in 2022 Midterms, Rupert Murdoch Turns on Trump.

Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che tackle the week’s biggest news, like Reverend Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker facing off in a runoff election.

The Democrats retaining control of the Senate is good news, but the election continues in Georgia for an actual majority next month. Also, the comparison between the favorability ratings for Joe Biden and "Jurassic World: Dominion" qualifies this as the Sunday entertainment update.

Follow over the jump for more highlights from last night's episode.

PBS Eons asks and answers 'Why Does Caffeine Exist?'

PBS Eons asked a question about the intersection of three of my interests, evolution, biodiversity, and coffee, Why Does Caffeine Exist?

Today, billions of people around the world start their day with caffeine. But how and why did the ability to produce this molecule independently evolve in multiple, distantly-related lineages of flowering plants, again and again?

This tale forms part of a story I tell my students, how plants synthesize compounds to defend against insects and other predators and parasites and then humans use them for other purposes, mostly medicinal and recreational, so I knew some of it already. However, I still learned about more plants that produce caffeine in addition to coffee, tea, cacao (chocolate), and kola nut, the legend behind the discovery of coffee, caffeine being an anti-gastropod and anti-fungal agent, and the biochemical pathway for caffeine action. As I've written many times before, "It's a good day when I learn something new." I hope my readers think so, too.

That's it for today's food science lesson. Stay tuned for the Sunday entertainment feature, when I plan on continuing my series on the 2022 Emmy nominees.

Neutron star collision detected and other top science stories of 2017

When I posted Gravity waves and other top science stories of 2016, I had no idea that the discoverers of gravity waves would win the Nobel Prize for physics this year, but they did.  Gravity waves are still the number one science story of the year, at least according to the AAAS and Science Magazine, as they named them Breakthrough of the Year, 2017.

Check out what Science's editors deemed the top results of 2017, including our Breakthrough of the Year!

That discovery topped most of the other lists I examined from what I considered reputable sources.  The other stories that Science Magazine placed in this year's top ten that showed up elsewhere were CRISPR and its role in gene therapy, the discovery of the oldest Homo sapiens fossils in Morrocco, and a new endangered species of orangutan.  Stories that Science Magazine did not mention that made many other sources' top science story lists included the Great American Eclipse and the end of the Cassini mission, perhaps because they were not breakthroughs or discoveries, even if both were big news.

Follow over the jump for videos from New Scientist, Curiosity Stream, Science News, and Scientific American on their top science stories of 2017.

Preserving lunar landing sites for National Moon Day

I ended Tipsy Bartender recipes for National Daiquiri Day 2017 by telling my readers "Stay tuned for a holiday I should have been celebrating at this blog all along, National Moon Day.

"National Moon Day is observed annually on July 20 and commemorates the day man first walked on the moon in 1969.   NASA reported the moon landing as being “…the single greatest technological achievement of all time.”

On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 landed the first humans, Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, on the moon.  Armstrong stepped first onto the lunar surface, six hours after landing and spent two and a half hours outside the spacecraft.  Aldrin spent slightly less time but together they collected 47.5 pounds of lunar material to bring back to Earth.  Michael Collins piloted Apollo 11 and remained alone in orbit until Armstrong and Aldrin returned.

Watched by millions, the event was broadcast on live TV to a world-wide audience and all witnessed as Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface and described the event as “one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”
...
In 1971, President Richard Nixon proclaimed National Moon Landing Day on July 20 to commemorate the anniversary of man’s first moon landing.

With no continuing proclamation to follow, Richard Christmas took up the baton and began a “Chrismas Card” writing campaign. A former gas station attendant, the Michigan native wrote to governors, congressmen and senators in all 50 states urging them to create National Moon Day. By July of 1975, 12 states had sponsored bills observing Moon Day.

James J. Mullaney, former Curator of Exhibits and Astronomy at Pittsburgh’s original Buhl Planetarium and Institute of Popular Science and Staff Astronomer at the Allegheny Observatory, is a modern day supporter of a National Moon Day.  He says, “If there’s a Columbus Day on the calendar, there certainly should be a Moon Day!”  Mr. Mullaney has been working toward making National Moon Day an official Federal holiday.

Making Moon Day an official holiday is a quirky cause I could get behind.  Speaking of quirky causes, USA Today reported the day before yesterday Professor says that Apollo 11 moon-landing site should be named a National Historic Landmark.

A former professor is proposing that the Apollo 11 landing site at Tranquility Base, where humans first stepped foot on the moon, should be named a National Historic Landmark.

The academic, Beth O’Leary, an emerita professor of anthropology at New Mexico State University, is also pushing for other lunar-landing sites to be preserved for posterity.
...
Her recent book, The Final Mission: Preserving NASA’s Apollo Sites, written with Milford Wayne Donaldson, chairman of the federal Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, and Lisa Westwood, a lecturer in California State University-Chico’s Anthropology Department, looks at the exploration of space from an archaeological and historical-preservation perspective, according to report in the Las Cruces Sun-News. It also details how various sites in New Mexico, Texas, California and Florida contributed to the successful Apollo missions.

KRWG News interviewed her about her book in In Focus #10 040417 Beth O'Leary.


I'm behind her quirky cause, too, although I wonder about the legalities of designating Tranquility Base a National Historic Landmark.  After all, the United States does not own the Moon.  That prevents the location from being a World Heritage Site, which is what I think it really should be, as countries can only submit candidates from within their own borders.  Not being part of the U.S. hasn't stopped either California or New Mexico from placing the landing site on their heritage registers, something O'Leary mentioned in her video.  May law catch up to reality so that either the U.S. or the U.N. can recognize the site, which it deserves.

Happy Autumnal Equinox 2016!

Today is the last day of astronomical summer and the first day of astronomical fall.  Treehugger gives the exact time of the transition today in 12 things to know about the 2016 autumnal equinox.

Well hello, fall.

Even though it happens year after year, the arrival of autumn is always a little surprising. Almost as if on a switch, one day late in the summer you feel it – a subtle crispness in the air. And before you know it, it’s pumpkin-spice-everything everywhere. We are suddenly swathed in sweaters and wearing boots and bombarded by shades of orange, often even before the thermometer warrants it. After slogging through a long hot August, it's exciting.

We can thank the autumnal equinox for this shift from sultry summer to cozy fall. And while most of us are aware of when the first day of autumn lands on the calendar, there’s more to the equinox than meets the eye. Consider the following.

1. This year, the autumnal equinox arrives precisely at 10:21 a.m. (EDT) on Thursday, September 22. Unlike an event like New Year’s midnight that follows the clock around the time zones, equinoxes happen at the same moment everywhere.

Eleven more facts at the link in the headline.  You can read them, or you can watch this video from National Geographic.

Just twice a year, day and night fall into perfect balance. Some claim that astronomical phenomenon, called equinox, inspires ancient structures to reveal hidden secrets.

Or you can do both.  Either way, happy equinox!

Doctor Carson and his Amazing Technicolor Labcoat

Dr. Ben Carson has finally said something outlandish enough that it induced me to remark on it.  I'll let Wonkette have the honors of explaining: Surprise, Dr. Ben Carson’s Latest Pyramid Scheme Involves Actual Pyramids.*

My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain. Now all the archeologists think that they were made for the pharaohs’ graves. But, you know, it would have to be something awfully big if you stop and think about it. And I don’t think it’d just disappear over the course of time to store that much grain.

Carson, of course, is referring to the well-known biblical account of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, in which a dream warns Joseph, held as a slave by the Pharaoh, to stockpile grain during a period of plenty to tide Egypt over during a seven-year famine, saving the grateful nation and inspiring a musical treatment by Andrew Lloyd Webber, which is why the Egyptians worshipped Cats. And to Carson, it’s obvious the huge granaries for that project would still have to be around, since everything in the Bible actually happened, like Noah’s Ark.

I guess Dr. Carson accepts the following advice, whether it comes from the Bible, folklore, or Andrew Lloyd Webber.


After all, it made the character of Potiphar from the Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat film rich.

Starring Maria Friedman as the Narrator, Joan Collins as Potiphar's wife and Donny Osmond as Joseph. From the 'film version of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.'

Follow over the jump for more.

Examiner.com article on Chelsea mammoth

A woolly mammoth skeleton was recovered near Chelsea, Michigan, and may show signs of human butchering.

Mammoth remains could be oldest evidence for humans in southeast Michigan.

A mammoth whose skeleton was removed from a Washtenaw County field this week may have been butchered by humans, the University of Michigan announced in a press release issued Friday.  If the extinct elephant relative remains were indeed cut by humans and found to be older than about 12,000 years old, they could be the oldest evidence for humans in southeast Michigan.

The mammoth bones were recovered from a farm owned by James Bristle in Lima Township near the city of Chelsea, Michigan, about ten miles southwest of Ann Arbor.  A team of University of Michigan paleontologists led by Professor Daniel Fisher, along with excavator Jamie Bollinger of Bollinger Sanitation and Excavating in Chelsea, who donated his time, were able to recover about 20 percent of the animal's bones, including the skull and two tusks, numerous vertebrae and ribs, the pelvis, and both shoulder blades.

Fisher described the age of both the site and the animal. "It was an adult male, 40 to 50 years of age, and stood probably 10 feet tall at the shoulder," he told  The Detroit News.  The animal, likely a woolly mammoth instead of its larger relative the Columbian mammoth, died between 15,000 and 11,700 years ago.

In the University of Michigan press release, Fisher said that the site held "excellent evidence of human activity" associated with the mammoth remains.  "We think that humans were here and may have butchered and stashed the meat so that they could come back later for it," he continued.

Click on the link in the headline for more about the discovery and a Reuters video that is higher quality than the following clip from Wochit: Holy Woolly Mammoth!!! Michigan Farmer Unearths Prehistoric Skeleton.

A Michigan soy farmer made the astonishing discovery while he and a friend were digging in his soy field. James Bristle, from Lima township just south-west of Anne Arbor, told media that what he initally thought was a fence post turned out to be a rib bone and the first part of a woolly mammoth skeleton, including its skull and tusks.

Stay tuned for Entertainment Sunday.  I might be up for two posts.

Food news for Thanksgiving 2014

It's Thanksgiving, which means, like last year and the year before it's time for me to reprint all the food, farming, and nutrition news from Ovenight News Digest:Science Saturday since Food Day 2014.  Appropriately enough for the theme of this blog, I begin with some post-apocalyptic food news from Michigan Tech.

Bacterial Slime: It's what's for Dinner (After a Catastrophic Crop Failure)
by Danny Messinger
November 19, 2014

If it were the end of the world as we know it, we’d be fine, according to Michigan Technological University professor Joshua Pearce.

“People have been doing catastrophic risk research for a while,” says Pearce. “But most of what’s been done is dark, apocalyptic and dismal. It hasn’t provided any real solutions.”

Even when looking at doomsday scenarios—like super-volcanoes, abrupt climate change and nuclear winter—society’s forecast isn’t horrific. In fact, Pearce says life will still have a sunny outlook. His research is outlined in a new book, Feeding Everyone No Matter What, out this week.

The good news is that we can feed everyone, as long as people plan ahead and are willing to eat bacteria, fungi, and insects for up to five years until what passes for normal agriculture returns.  The latter part I'm not as worried about as the first part.  I'm not as optimistic about people preparing.

Follow over the jump for the rest of the food news, presented in more-or-less reverse chronological order.

Orbiting Carbon Observatory launches and space news video extravaganza

I ended Gliese 832c and other space and astronomy news by telling my readers to to stay tuned for the next week's space news.  The wait is over.

The news begins with Carbon Observing Mission Launches on This Week @NASA.

NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 mission is underway. Launched from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base, OCO-2 will help track our impact on the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and help us better understand the various human-made and natural sources of CO-2. This is one of five Earth-observing missions scheduled in 2014 -- the most Earth-focused missions launched in a single year, in more than a decade. Also, Saucer-shaped vehicle tested, Cygnus Orb-2 launch update, Space Launch System model tests and 10 years exploring Saturn.

Follow over the jump for the rest of last week's space and astronomy news, mostly in video form.

May Pazuzu curse the Sith Jihad

I concluded Prices continue floating down over 4th of July by writing I'd have more to say later about ISIS, the Sith Jihad.  It's later.  Take it away, Daily Telegraph!

Iraq's 'Exorcist' temple falls into Isis jihadist hands
Ancient pre-Christian temple in northern Iraq featured in film The Exorcist at risk of destruction by Isis jihadists
By Colin Freeman, Baghdad

An ancient temple made famous in the film The Exorcist has fallen into the hands of the Islamic militants who have taken over northern Iraq, the Telegraph has learnt.

The pre-Christian worship complex at Hatra, a vast network of 200-ft high sun-god temples that is a Unesco world heritage site, features in the opening sequence of the 1973 horror classic.
...
Director William Friedkin filmed in Hatra for the first scene in The Exorcist, in which a priest at an archaeology dig unearths an ancient talisman belonging to Pazuzu, an ancient Mesopotamian demon. A child bogeymen in Mesopotamian folklore, Pazuzu is said to be alerted whenever his talismans are disturbed or touched, and in The Exorcist he goes to possess a young American girl.

Should ISIS deface the temple, may Pazuzu curse the Sith Jihad.

"The Exorcist" isn't the only item of popular culture in which Pazuzu appears.  He also makes a cameo in Rockit by Gorillaz.


If I ever need a new theme song, I could use this one.  I might find "blah, blah, blah, collapse" useful some day.

Progress on Orion and other space and astronomy news

A recurring themes of this blog is my fear that the United States is acting out one of the great tragic tropes of science fiction--turning its back on space as part of its decline as a civilization, which I explored most recently in Space News for the second and third year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News.  Therefore, I'm interested in any signs that the U.S. will resume independent crewed spaceflight, if for no other reason than to rub the naysayers noses in it, as I wrote in Mars, solar flares, and this month's stargazing in this week's space and astronomy news.  NASA provided me such a sign in Orion Spacecraft Is Taking Shape on This Week @NASA.


I'll be following Orion's progress intently.

Continue over the jump for more space and astronomy news.

What the Sith Jihad wants includes science crime scenes

When I posted ISIS looks like Sith, not Jedi on Facebook, someone called ISIS "The Sith Jihad" in comments.  That's such a good label, I'm using it for them from now on. Unfortunately, the best image is one from the prequel trilogy to "Dune."  The rest are too offensive.  So be it.

I begin with Test Tube's Who Is ISIS And What Do They Want In Iraq?


You heard the presenter right; ISIS prepares quarterly reports.  Here's what Vox had to say about one of them in The surreal infographics ISIS is producing, translated.

We know that ISIS, the al-Qaeda breakaway group that's gaining more and more ground in Iraq at the moment, is an exceptionally well-trained and disciplined fighting force, with a shockingly sophisticated social media strategy to boot. But did you know that they also produce annual reports with fancy infographics detailing all the operations they carried out over a given period?

The most recent report, published on March 31, details the group's operations from November 2012 to November 2013. It's a dense, text-heavy 410 pages, with plenty of data tables tallying up various actions the group took. A previous report covered the period from November 2011 to November 2012 over a much more concise 198 pages. Each report begins with a big, splashy infographic counting up various actions undertaken in the previous year.

The infographics at the link show how many bombings, assassinations, prisoner rescues, and other military operations took place during the reporting period.  The latest includes how many cities they've captured.  I don't know whether to be disgusted or impressed.

That's not all ISIS wants.  Apparently they want to create a bunch of science (and culture) crime scenes.  Follow over the jump for the story explaining how and why that I originally included in Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Summer Solstice 2014).