Quigley's Cabinet

Zoo review

2012-01-31T07:26:00.023-05:00

Animals at the Singapore Zoo: 1st image) pangolin on the arm of a keeper, 2nd image) baby Malayan tapir, 3rd image), 3-toed sloth, 4th image) lesser mouse deer, 5th image) crocodiles, 6th image) flying foxes, 7th image) proboscis monkey.

My friend Chris and her husband Jim were world travelers until his death in 2005 and made a point of going to the zoos in their destination countries. Chris has continued the travels and the tradition, and offers - at my request - her synopses* of the zoos, aquariums, and animal parks she has visited over the years:

ABQ BIOPARK ZOO, ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO, USA
Very hard to find, poor signage, but well laid out with a good range of species. Only accessible via car, wheelchair rental available.

BEIJING ZOO, BEIJING, CHINA
Huge - pandas are neat to see. We were looking at the deer collection, which was extensive. Put on your walking shoes for this.

BERLIN ZOOLOGICAL GARDEN, BERLIN, GERMANY
Large variety of animals. Nocturnal animal exhibit is well done. Got there via public transportation, wheelchair rental available.

BOSPHORUS ZOO, ISTANBUL, TURKEY
Poorly kept, not very big. We visited this zoo in winter and were told the animals had been "sent South" for the season. The creatures that had not been relocated - including an elephant and some camels - were bedraggled. Don't make the mistake and go in the aquarium, which is just a bunch of fish tanks stacked on top of each other. It may be better in warmer weather, but I'd skip this one if I were you.

BRONX ZOO, BRONX, NEW YORK, USA
Wonderful and big, my favorite American zoo. Cool monorail that takes you from one side to the other suspended above the zoo. A bit tricky to get to without a car, but you can take the subway and bus to the entrance. Get a map and choose what you want to see, since you can't do it all in one day. Wheelchair rentals, call in advance.

BUDAPEST ZOO AND BOTANICAL GARDEN, BUDAPEST, HUNGARY
I was here before and after it was renovated. Very nicely done, great place to spend the day. Wonderful exotic mouse exhibit. Easy to get to via metro.

DUBLIN ZOO, DUBLIN, IRELAND
Large and well-kept, with a good variety of animals. There are meerkats on the other side of a glass wall in the cafeteria - was fun to eat and watch them watching us! Easy to get to via public bus.

DUSIT ZOO, BANGKOK, THAILAND
Located in the middle of a big public park. A very good variety of deer, which were the focus of our visit, but plenty of other Asian animals. Worth seeing, though we found the humidity a challenge.

GRADINA ZOOLOGICA BUCARESTI, BUCHAREST, ROMANIA
Bucharest, Romania - long cab ride from city center, we paid $5 in '04.
European style with some of our common animals, surprise was seeing a
furry (lamb like fur) on a pig.

MEMPHIS ZOO, MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE, USA
Memphis, Tenn. - Nice, not too big. I saw it all in a few hours. Has train that goes around the whole zoo which is nice.

MOSCOW ZOO, MOSCOW, RUSSIA
Moscow, Russia - not overly big, seemed to be more birds than anything else.

MUSK OX FARM, PALMER, ALASKA, USA
The huge prehistoric animals on this musk ox preserve are fascinating to see. You can walk around and view them through the fence. They sell hats, gloves, etc., made from their undercoat, called "qiviut," which is warmer than wool. I've had my snood for 18 years now and love it.

NATURIS ARTIS MAGISTRA, AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS
We saw this zoo in the pouring rain. Large and well-done, though entrance fee is high. Unlike most zoos, where the food is expensive and not too good, it has a nice cafe with a good choice of dishes.

NEW YORK AQUARIUM, BROOKLYN, NEW YORK, USA
A very nice aquarium. Easy to get to via subway.

PRAHA ZOO, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
Very hilly. There were a lot of what appeared to be domesticated chickens running around - go figure. The metro and then a bus took us right to the entrance. Wheelchair rental.

SAN DIEGO ZOO, SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, USA
On par with the Bronx Zoo. Huge - lots of animals. Plan to spend an entire day or even 2. Worth the effort.

SANTA FE COLLEGE TEACHING ZOO, GAINESVILLE, FLORIDA, USA
College zoo where you learn to be a zookeeper. Lots of animals, but you can only go via reserved tour - worth it.

SINGAPORE ZOO, SINGAPORE, INDONESIA
The best zoo I've been in before or since. State-of-the-art exhibits, lemurs flying around overhead on wires, and the best little air-conditioned booths when the heat gets to you. Many programs, such as night visits, jungle breakfasts, lunch with lions, etc. Don't miss this one!!! Long cab ride from the city center, but public transport is possible if you have the time.

SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL ZOOLOGICAL PARK, WASHINGTON, DC, USA
Very large. Plan to spend the day. Accessible via metro and car, wheelchair rental.

WILLIAMS REINDEER PARK, PALMER, ALASKA, USA
Not a zoo, but a reindeer farm where you can get in the middle of the animals and pet and feed them - fun for all.

ZOO AQUARIUM DE MADRID, MADRID, SPAIN
Well kept, typical European style with iron cages. Large and wonderful wolf collection.

ZOO MIAMI, MIAMI, FLORIDA, USA
Huge - lots of animals I had never heard of, since it is a tropical climate. Was there the entire day, but saw it all.

Chris concludes, "I hope you enjoy your visit to the zoo! I have always loved animals and to this day seek out the zoo in any city. Watching animals and their behavior is fascinating. In many international zoos, you will see animals common to your own country (for Americans, porcupine, racoons, etc.). They are exotic to those folks as theirs are to us. Still, I always find it amusing to see a crowd around a opossum or some similar animal!"

*I have listed them in alphabetical order and included Chris's tips about accessibility.

Burgers and bucks

2012-01-30T08:19:00.008-05:00

People from all over the country have made it a pilgrimage to get to Fat Smitty's in Discovery Bay, Washington, for a burger. Satisfied patrons from far and wide have been leaving dollar bills on the walls and ceiling (above), sometimes marked with handwritten notes, ever since 1985, when a Caterpillar equipment salesman eating at the bar asked whether he could stick a dollar bill on the ceiling with his business card. Certain areas of the walls have been adopted by specific groups of patrons, like the military, the scouts, Rotary exchange students, high school sports teams, the widow and friends of a long-time customer, and fans of one of the few people to eat 3 Fat Smitty's burgers in one sitting. So far, the greed has been for the food and not for the cash. No one has broken in and customers have only occasionally tried to pocket some of the money. "There was guy who tried to take a few bills some time ago. But I just took the money back and threw his sorry ass out," says Smitty's nephew and manager. Estimated at $6,000, the tally in the accumulated "greenback rain forest" turned out to be much more. After the restaurant closed for the season, a total of $10,316 was pulled down by the local Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, and counted by Carl ("Fat Smitty") and his wife Mickey Schmidt. The scouts will receive the bulk of the money to build a dining hall at their camp, and $3,000 will be donated to St. Jude's Research Hospital in Memphis. With the walls now bare (the bills on the ceiling - which could easily exceed another $1,000 - were left in place to maintain some of the history), Smitty plans to continue the tradition by filling them up all over again when he reopens on March 1st: "Hopefully, because people know the money is going for charity, it will go up even faster in the future."

Birds and bombs

2012-01-29T09:49:00.012-05:00

Beatrice Harrison (1892-1965) was a British cellist who studied at the Royal College of Music in London and made her debut in the Bechstein Hall in Berlin. Beatrice was from a very musical family and had 3 sisters: May (a violinist), Monica, and Margaret (a pianist).

"The Harrisons were very much part of the London social life when they lived in Cornwall Gardens from 1901 to 1920. After their move to Foyle Riding in Oxted, Surrey, in 1922 their music room was visited by most leading musicians of the day. Their garden was the scene of many social charity garden parties, and received visitors from all over the world to see `The Garden of the Nightingales'. These included coach parties of all kinds of people from London who were always served tea by the sisters. None of the sisters ever married," writes David Candlin, Chairman, The Harrison Sisters' Trust.

Beatrice was important in musical circles for being the 1st to perform several important English works, but became popular among the public because of recordings of her cello-playing accompanied by the sound of nightingales that were broadcast in the early days of sound radio (listen to the 1st link here) from Beatrice's garden in Foyle Riding, Surrey.

Transmitted by the BBC. The broadcasts - with or without the cello music - became an annual event, even after Beatrice moved in 1936. To quote Retronaut, "On May 19th, 1942, as BBC engineers were recording the bird-song prior to transmission, a faint hum gradually became audible, slowly increasing in volume, as 197 bombers flew overhead on their way to raids in Mannheim. Realizing the security risk, the broadcast was halted. But not the recording…" (listen here).

Mannheim 197 aircraft - 105 Wellingtons, 31 Stirlings, 29 Halifaxes, 15 Hampdens, 13 Lancasters, 4 Manchesters. 11 aircraft - 4 Halifaxes, 4 Stirlings, 3 Wellingtons - lost. 155 aircraft reported hitting Mannheim but most of their bombing photographs showed forests or open country. A concentrated group of about 600 incendiaries in the harbour area on the Rhine burnt out 4 small industrial concerns. Only light damage was caused elsewhere. The only fatal casualties were 2 firemen. Minor Operations: 65 'freshmen' crews to St Nazaire but bombing results were poor, 9 aircraft minelaying off Lorient and near Heligoland, 13 aircraft on leaflet flights to France. 1 Wellington lost on the St Nazaire raid. Total effort for the night: 284 sorties, 12 aircraft (4.2 per cent) lost.~Campaign diary of the Royal Air Force Bomber Command for the night of May 19, 1942

Beatrice gave the 1st performance of Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto outside London in 1921 and it became the work with which she was most closely identified. Less than a year after she performed it with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1940, the old Queen's Hall in which they had played was destroyed by German bombing. In fact, during the performance itself - during which Beatrice's style was particularly animated - there was a rattle of gunfire outside and plaster fell inside the hall.

Reminders of war indoors and out...

Flotsam and jetsam

2012-01-28T07:30:00.011-05:00

There once were 2 men off Nantucket
Who fished from a 26' bucket
Till the wind blew up,
The boat threw up,
And sent them to shore saying, "F**k it."

The following story appealed to me because I could showcase my limerick-writing skills, because the image at the top looks so strangely abstract, and because it gives me a vehicle to discuss the difference between 2 seemingly indistinguishable nautical terms.

Aug. 25, 2008
New Jersey resident Scott Douglas and his brother-in-law Rich St. Pierre were fishing off Nantucket, Massachusetts in Douglas's boat, the "Queen Bee." The weather had gotten worse and the seas were dangerously high, with 6'-8' waves. Both men were thrown from the boat and were unable to get back aboard, although they were able to retrieve the personal flotation device that had also ended up in the water. Forced to swim to Esther Island on the west side of Nantucket, the challenge took them 2 hours. “There were times when both of us didn’t think we were going to make it. Everything had to go our way. It was a miracle,” said Douglas, happy to have lost only the boat rather than their lives.

Jan. 17, 2012
Flotsam* was found 20 miles off the coast of Spain in the form of a rusted and barnacle-covered boat (pictured above). The Maritime Rescue Coordination Center in Madrid contacted the U.S. Coast Guard, which linked the vessel to the 2008 search and rescue near Nantucket. It was indeed the same boat lost by Douglas and St. Pierre, several years and 3,500 nautical miles away. “The Coast Guard’s opinion is it went up north the coast of New England, Canada, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, across the northern Atlantic, Greenland and then eventually getting to Ireland and making a right going down the European coast. It took 3 1/2 years to do that,” explained Douglas, who has no legal right to the boat anymore after having settled with his insurance company. "We were lucky enough to be saved, and the heck with the boat, but the boat - being a well-made boat - decided that she wanted to be okay too.” The Queen Bee - a little worse for wear - is now the property of the Spanish Government.

*To paraphrase Michael Quinion, flotsam (from Anglo-Norman floteson, connected to float and to late Latin flottare, to float) is goods from a ship that has sunk which can be recovered because they remain afloat, while jetsam (a variant form of English jettison formed by association with the slightly older flotsam) is goods that have been deliberately thrown overboard in an emergency to lighten and thereby save a ship from wrecking.

Legs of lamb

2012-01-27T08:01:00.011-05:00

Some posts are harder to research than others. Googling today's topic of lambs with more than 4 legs yields more yummy recipes than unique stories! But I have found a few to accompany the most recent news of anomalous birth in the barnyard:

Velistsikhe, Georgia 2012 Shepherd Abadzhanov Albert shows off his 6-legged hermaphroditic lamb (1st image, video here). "I have been asking the other shepherds, but none of them remember such case. There were 3-legged lambs, one-eyed, but not 6-legged. The lamb eats well, but moves with difficulty."

Aughagowla, County Mayo, Ireland 2011
Local veterinary surgeon George O'Malley removed 2 extra legs from a 6-week-old lamb, an anomaly the farmer had not seen in 40 years (4th image), although he had attended the births of calves with 2 heads and other animals born with a multiplicity of tails. "I received a call from the farmer, who wishes to remain anonymous, shortly after the lamb was born. It was an amazing sight. Thankfully the lamb grew stronger and it was not in any way life-threatening to remove the 2 legs, which were causing the animal some inconvenience. The amputation went very smoothly and there was no pain involved for the lamb who responded exceedingly well. 'Lambo' is fit, perfectly healthy and can walk without any problems now. I am delighted about that and so is the lamb's owner."

Methven, South Island, New Zealand 2007
Veterinarian Steve Williams examines a 6-day-old lamb born with 7 legs on the farm of Dave Callaghan (3rd image). Because the lamb was missing a portion of its bowel, it was unable to pass its waste and had to be destroyed. Said the farmer: "I have never seen anything like that. To keep it alive is probably inhumane really."

Meeuwen-Gruitrode, Belgium 2006
Farmer Maurice Peeters, feeds a lamb born with 6 legs (2nd image, more photos here). "The vet immediately put his hand on it, and asked me if I'd seen it. I said I'd seen it and I said I'd seen it has way too many legs." Since the lamb was unable to walk but otherwise healthy, Peeters planned to have the extra legs amputated.

If you add in these 6-legged lambs born in Kenya and Turkey, that's 37 legs of lamb! Rather than have the amputated limbs go to waste, the New Zealand lamb was donated to the
Pompallier Catholic College for dissection. Biology teacher Nigel Studdart said it would give the students the opportunity to compare normal and abnormal development. "I'll get them hands-on doing some of the dissection, those that really want to have a go, because they'll never forget it. It's the sort of thing that inspires kids into science."

Going down with the ship

2012-01-25T15:36:00.020-05:00

Since the Costa Concordia - an Italian cruise ship with 3,229 passengers and 1,023 crew members on board - ran aground on January 13th of this year, there has been a lot of chatter about whether Capt. Francesco Schettino was obligated to be the last one off the sinking ship and much speculation about that maritime "rule." Starting with a list by Marine Insight of 10 famous shipwrecks, then eliminating some and adding 1 more, I offer a review of the actions of the captains of those vessels:

The Vasa was a Swedish war vessel that sank during its maiden voyage to the naval station at Älvsnabben on Aug. 10, 1628. The crowd that had assembled to watch the ship fire a salute and set sail from Stockholm instead saw it capsize just 390' from shore when gusts of wind forced it onto its port side and water flowed into the open lower gun ports. Captain Söfring Hansson, who survived the disaster that killed up to 50, was immediately imprisoned awaiting trial, but an inquest found that he and his crew were not at fault and that the builders of the poorly-designed and under-ballasted ship were not negligent.

The SS Sultana was a steamboat paddlewheeler used at the end of the American Civil War to transport prisoners of war from the Union army back home. The vessel was severely overcrowded with released Confederate soldiers when 3 of the 4 boilers exploded on April 22, 1865, and it sank in the Mississippi River near Memphis. Captain J. C. Mason was among roughly 1,800 of the 2,400 people on board who were killed.

The RMS Rhone was a royal mail steam packet ship that transported cargo and carried passengers from England, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. The "unsinkable" ship was refueling in the British Virgin Islands on October 19, 1867, when Captain Robert F. Wooley, worried about worsening hurricane conditions, took on (an unknown number of) passengers of the nearby RMS Conway - which then foundered with the loss of all hands. When the Rhone (with 146 on board) was thrown directly into the rocky shore, the lurch sent Captain Wooley overboard, never to be seen again. The ship split, the boilers exploded, and both bow and stern sank. Only 23 people (all of them crew members) survived the wreck.

The RMS Titanic, with Captain Edward J. Smith in command, was the largest cruise ship of its time. The passenger liner collided with an iceberg during its maiden voyage from Southhampton, England, to New York. The ship broke apart and sank in less than 3 hours on April 14, 1912, 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland. During that time, Capt. Smith authorized the lowering of the lifeboats and the sending of distress signals. Although some say he met his end in the wheelhouse or radio room, Robert Ballard and others claim that Smith was on the bridge 7 minutes before the final sinking, with one officer reporting that the captain dove into the sea from the open bridge just before the final plunge. He was one of the 1, 517 people who lost their lives in one of the biggest maritime tragedies. Like many others, his body was never recovered.

The RMS Lusitania, a British ocean liner that traveled between Liverpool and New York, was torpedoed by a German U-boat on May 7, 1915, 11 miles off the coast of Ireland. Captain William Thomas Turner tried to steer toward the shore, but steam pressure and electrical power quickly failed. He ordered evacuation, but there was much panic and many mishaps in the lowering of the lifeboats. Captain Turner remained on the bridge until the water washed him overboard into the sea. He clung to a chair floating in the water for 3 hours until he was rescued, unconscious but alive. The Lusitania had sunk in 18 minutes, killing 1,198 of the 1,959 people aboard, and leaving 764 survivors.

The RMS Carpathia, famous for coming to the aid of the sinking Titanic, was destroyed by a German submarine during World War I. The steamship had left Liverpool for Boston and was travelling with 6 other ships when it was struck by 2 torpedoes on July 17, 1918, killing 5 crew members and taking out the wireless and 2 lifeboats. The captain ordered the crew to signal other ships using flags and rockets and to lower the 11 lifeboats. After the passengers and most of the crew were evacuated, Prothero and the remaining officers and gunners abandoned ship. A 3rd torpedo hit and the Carpathia sank 10 minutes later. All 57 passengers and 218 of the crew were saved, with only 3 serious injuries.

The SS Andrea Doria was an Italian ocean liner that collided with the Swedish ship MS Stockholm on July 25, 1956, on its way to New York carrying 1,134 passengers and 572 crew. The accident in foggy conditionswas severe, causing the ship to list severely to starboard, leaving half of the lifeboats unusable. Captain Piero Calamai ordered evacuation within 30 minutes and his quick action, along with a design that allowed the Andrea Doria to stay afloat for 11 hours, is credited with avoiding massive casualties. While hundreds of passengers were injured - and large numbers of crew had left the ship first - only 46 were killed. The captain (later found equally at fault with the captain of the Stockholm for the collision) and remaining crew disembarked little more than an hour before the ship disappeared underwater.

The MS Estonia was a cruise ferry piloted by Arvo Andresson that sank on Sept. 28, 1994, in the Baltic Sea en route from Estonia to Sweden. Of the 989 passengers and crew on board, 852 people lost their lives when the ship capsized for reasons blamed on everything from rough weather to military involvement. Reportedly, the bodies of the captain and his officers were found still on the bridge when divers entered to retrieve the watertight computer tapes.

Coast Guard attorney Scott Allen has written that the captain of a vessel is expected to save himself (and continue his career) rather than drown, but only after all passengers and crew have been evacuated or accounted for. As master of the vessel, the captain is morally and legally responsible for remaining on board until he discharges all his duties, including seeing to the safety of his passengers and crew and attempting to salvage the ship. In light of this most current disaster, Jans-Uwe Schroder-Hinrichs of the World Maritime University in Sweden asks, "How would a captain fulfill his obligations if he was not on board? Emergency responses are nearly almost always coordinated from the ship - you have fairly limited options for getting necessary information from a lifeboat."

The image above by DigitalGlobe shows the Costa Concordia as it appears from their WorldView satellite. The ship is lodged just off shore near the Italian island of Giglio after striking a reef.

Pangboche yeti

2012-01-24T10:57:00.008-05:00

Rumors of partial remains of a yeti brought American adventurer Tom Slick (1916-1962) to the remote destination of Pangboche, Nepal, in the 1950s. Slick financed an expedition to the monastery in the Himalayas where the artifacts were held and team member Peter Byrne not only photographed the hand (2nd image), but took a portion of it when the monks refused to release it for
study. Byrne recently recounted, "It looked like a large human hand. It was covered with crusted black, broken skin. It was very oily from the candles and the oil lamps in the temple. The fingers were hooked and curled." When Sir Edmund Hillary and Marlin Perkins later examined the hand in Nepal in 1960 and declared it a hoax, they were unaware that it was a mix of original material and human bone that had been substituted by Byrnes. The portions of the hand that had been smuggled to the West underwent analysis over the years, and were described as "hominid" and possibly Neanderthal by an English primatologist and declared "near human" by the American TV show "Unsolved Mysteries." Shortly after the program aired, the entire hand and associated skullcap were stolen from the Pangboche monastery, and are believed to have been acquired by a private collector. To make up for the loss, New Zealand pilot Mike Allsop had replacements (3rd image) crafted by special effects designers at Weta Workshops and flew them to the monks in April 2011. "I will take these replicas back to the monks so they can replace the ones that were stolen. I want to help the monastery have an income again - I want to help them out," said Allsop, who continues to search for the original hand. Meanwhile, a portion of that original surfaced in 2008 at the Royal College of Surgeons' Hunterian Museum in London. The 3.5"-long "yeti finger" from Pangboche had been retained with other items of crptozoological interest by the primatologist who had examined it decades earlier. The RCS allowed DNA testing of the specimen by the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, and the sample (1st image) was analyzed by geneticist Dr. Rob Ogden: "We have got a very, very strong match to a number of existing reference sequences on human DNA databases. It's very similar to existing human sequences from China and that region of Asia but we don't have enough resolution to be confident of a racial identification." The solution to the mystery was announced last month. Dr. Ogden concludes, "We had to stitch it together. We had several fragments that we put into one big sequence and then we matched that against the database and we found human DNA. So it wasn't too surprising but it was obviously slightly disappointing that you hadn't discovered something brand new. Human was what we were expecting and human is what we got."

Aboard

2012-01-23T08:36:00.014-05:00

It has been 100 years since the British Antarctic Expedition reached the South Pole in January 1912. Not only was the exclusive 5-member polar party deflated to learn that they were not the 1st to reach the extreme destination (a Norwegian team had beaten them by 33 days), they lost their lives on the trek and remain entombed in the ice (as documented in Modern Mummies). Royal Navy officer Robert Falcon Scott (1868-1912) led what is better known as the Terra Nova Expedition, Terra Nova being the name of the ship (pictured above in a set of rare photos* from National Geographic, more photos here). The caption notes some of the cargo that the ship - formerly a whaling and sealing vessel - carried, and I was curious to find a more complete list. According to a history by the Antarctic Heritage Trust, the Terra Nova carried the following list (though still not complete) of personnel and supplies:

450 tons of compressed coal
162 mutton carcasses
65 sailors and scientists
45 tons of fodder and oil-cake, bran, and crushed oats
33 Siberian dogs
19 ponies (2 Siberian and 17 Manchurian)
3 motor sledges and drums of petrol
3 carcasses of beef
cheese
butter
medical supplies
tools
photographic equipment
navigation equipment
surveying instruments
scientific instruments
clothing
sleeping bags
tents
furniture
prefabricated huts

The AHT history reads that despite the loss of Scott and 4 of his men, "The British Antarctic Expedition had achieved a great deal. The Union Jack was flown at the South Pole, a winter journey had been made to the Emperor penguin colony at Cape Crozier, extensive geological field work had been achieved by the northern and western parties, an impressive scientific and surveying programme was concluded and the second ascent was made of Mount Erebus. Very thorough meteorological records were kept, and these still provide useful base data today, while photographic images from the expedition are among the most evocative ever taken in the Antarctic."

*The photographs are in black and white, but I have taken the liberty of changing this image to sepia.

Crushed

2012-01-22T07:38:00.021-05:00

It takes a minute for the mind to make sense of this photograph, which 1st appeared to me to be an abstract image, but the accompanying news report reveals that the 40' orange shipping container fell 200' to the ship's deck and killed longshoreman Steven Nicholas Saggiani, 47, at the Port of Long Beach, California, on Thursday. Crushing accidents are all too common, even excluding traffic accidents, as this list of recent fatalities indicates:

5/22/08 A 49-year-old man died after he was pinned beneath a metal bin filled with rocks in Anaheim, California.
3/9/09 Larry Cantrell, 61, was crushed by the compactor of his side-loading recycling truck in Eugene, Oregon.
8/20/11 Tuan Phan, 49, was crushed by a circular knitting machine in Garden Grove, California.
1/28/11 Delmas Ramsey, 20, was killed inside a cement crusher he was attempting to unclog in Clermont, Florida.
5/23/11 Pat Marino, 73, was crushed to death by a 3,500lb winch in Winthrop, Massachusetts.
6/27/11 Kyle Helton, 22, was crushed by part of a petroleum pipeline in Lufkin, Texas.
6/23/11 Allen Rommell, 48, was killed while welding an industrial tank in White Lake, Michigan.
8/30/11 Henry LaFlore, 58, had his head crushed by a press in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
12/6/11 An unidentified man was killed when a 3,000lb tortilla maker fell from a forklift as it was being moved in Palm Springs, Florida.
12/7/11 Annette Lujan, 48, was crushed to death by an elevator* at Cal State in Long Beach, California, where she was a student.
12/14/11 Suzanne Hart, 41, was crushed by the elevator in the 28-story office building where she worked in New York.
12/20/11 Annette Goode, 53, was killed by falling bales of paper while sweeping at a recycling plant in Dayton, Ohio.
1/10/12 Brady Perkins, 47, was crushed by a press machine as he worked at a sign-making company in St. Louis, Missouri.
1/16/12 Lucio Valderrabano, 40, was killed by a 700lb bale of hay at a mushroom processing plant in Avondale, Pennsylvania.

To end on a happier note, 40-year-old David Beers, owner of Eaton Mountain Ski Area in Skowhegan, Maine, was run over by his 18.000lb snow-grooming machine (photo here) last month and survived with only a dislocated ankle and a broken jaw.

*I've done a 2-part post about elevators here and here.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

2012-01-21T08:06:00.014-05:00

When my Dad was visiting with my stepmother at Thanksgiving, he helped me fine-tune the organization of books in my "museum library." Most are nonfiction, but a rare exception is a slim paperback copy of We Have Always Lived at the Castle by American author Shirley Jackson (1916-1965). Dad's curiosity was aroused by the cover illustration (above), and when he asked me I told him it was my favorite book of all time. I sent it home with him so he could read it, and when he mailed it back he included a few questions. I can't answer them here without spoiling the plot, but - after rereading and savoring it all over again - I can summarize why I like it so much:

5) Authentic actions of the cat, which cat owners will readily picture in their minds: "The day outside was full of changing light, and Jonas danced in and out of shadows as he followed me. When I ran Jonas ran, and when I stopped and stood still he stopped and glanced at me and then went briskly off in another direction, as though we were not acquainted, and then he sat down and waited for me to run again."
4) A delicious twist as the morbid story unfolds: "'My niece Mary Katherine has been a long time dead, young man. She did not survive the loss of her family. I supposed you knew that.'"
3) An economy of details that is still very rich, accompanied by an effectively repetitive dialog: "'Tomorrow I will barricade the sides of the house. Tomorrow Jonas will catch us a rabbit. Tomorrow I will guess for you what time it is.'"
2) Vivid imagery of the sisters living in their vandalized house, salvaging 2 teacups that still have handles and improvising tablecloths for clothes, unconcerned that part of the roof has burned off: "Usually I ate fruit and vegetables still moist from the ground and the air, but I disliked eating anything while it was still dirty with the ash from our burned house. Most of the dirt and the soot had blown away and the air around the garden was fresh and clean, but the smoke was in the ground and I thought it would always be there."
1) Intriguing details of the magical thinking that occupies the younger sister's mind and time, as she nails a book to a tree and buries marbles and silver dollars as means of protection: "I decided that I would choose 3 powerful words, words of strong protection, and so long as these great words were never spoken aloud no change would come."

Jackson's stories and novels have been adapted for stage and screen, but her most famous story "The Lottery" (read it here) was much more powerful in print. If I have piqued your interest, you can buy a new or Kindle edition of We Have Always Lived at the Castle (or a used edition for less than $1) at Amazon.

Burke & Hare

2012-01-20T07:37:00.020-05:00

On January 28th, for the 1st time in its 127-year history, the Anatomy Museum at the University of Edinburgh will open its doors to the public - and will continue to do so from 10am-4pm on the last Saturday of every month. The date is of particular importance, since it is the 183rd anniversary of William Burke’s execution. If you know about the history of anatomy, the name will need no further explanation, and is forever linked to his accomplice William Hare. The pair are infamous 19th c. bodysnatchers who committed at least 15 (and possibly as many as 30) murders for the money they could make supplying Scottish anatomists, including Dr. Robert Knox (1791-1862), immortalized in rhyme. While most of their fellow "resurrectionists" were exhuming newly-buried bodies from their graves to be used as cadavers, Burke and Hare found it easier to lure victims to their deaths (by smothering) and thereby a) ensure the freshness of their products and b) avoid the mess entailed in harvesting them from the ground. Though equally culpable for the appalling crimes, the 2 Williams suffered very different fates and are therefore represented by contrasting specimens in the museum:

William Burke
(1792- 1829)
After arrest, Burke was tried in Dec. 1828 for the murder of one of the victims, found guilty, and sentenced to death and public dissection. “Burke's body is to be dissected, and his Skeleton to be preserved, in order that posterity may keep in remembrance his atrocious crimes,” read the handbill that circulated at the time. He was hanged before a crowd of 20,000 on Jan. 28th, 1829, and his body was brought to Dr. Alexander Monro tertius (1773-1859), Dr. Knox’s rival. During his dissection, the anatomist made a death mask, the cast of which was recently found in storage at Inveraray jail in Argyll (1st image, held by Director of the Anatomy Department Dr. Gordon Findlater). After some 24,000 people filed past Burke's mutilated body, his skeleton (2nd image) was processed and his skin was tanned so that it could be crafted into souvenirs.

William Hare
(1792/1804 - ?)
Because there was insufficient evidence to secure a conviction against he and his partner, Hare was convinced to turn King's evidence and testify against Burke. His fate after his release is unclear. Some believe he left Edinburgh for Dumfries and was afterward seen in Carlisle. Others think he made his way to London, was blinded after being thrown into a lime pit, and spent the rest of his life on the street as a beggar. All that remains is speculation, an illustration, and a life mask (3rd image).

Those curious about the history of anatomy and dissection may wish to preorder my 6th book, Dissection on Display, which has now been announced for publication this spring/summer!

Thanks, Sue!

Spoiled dog

2012-01-19T08:22:00.008-05:00

Did you ever wonder what became of reviled New York real estate tycoon Leona Helmsley's dog? As the headlines proclaimed upon the death of the "Queen of Mean" in 2007, she left $12 million of her $4 billion estate to her pet Maltese (see Article F of her Last Will and Testament). Well, I've hunted down the answer after learning from this article that "Trouble" (pictured above, more photos here) was by no means the best-bequeathed animal. Helmsley set the aside the money in a trust for the care the dog, but the amount was reduced to $2 million - “enough money to pay for Trouble’s maintenance and welfare at the highest standards of care for more than 10 years, which is more that twice her reasonably anticipated life expectancy” - with the remainder going to charity. The dog remained as spoiled as she looks,* with an annual budget of $100,000 for food, grooming, and a full-time security guard (since Trouble had reportedly received dozens of death and kidnapping threats). Trouble herself was left to Helmsley's brother, Alvin Rosenthal, who put her under the protection of Carl Lekic, general manager of the Helmsley Sandcastle Hotel in Sarasota, Florida. One of the Maltese's caretakers characterizes her toxic personality, which apparently mirrored that of her owner:

“Always, always yapping and talking. I grew up with dogs, I love dogs, or at least I did. This was the worst animal on the planet.....You fed it the best food on the planet and all it did was nip at you. When you tried to bring it to the groomer it had to sit in the back seat all by itself and if the driver looked at it, watch out. This was a terrible animal and I think the money just made [it] worse. It was a problematic dog to be sure. I think [it] got really used to being pampered....There isn’t a person in the world who is sad to see [it] go, I can tell you that....No one really wants to see anyone go down like that, but if there was anyone in the world who deserved it, it was Trouble.”

By then blind and infirm, Trouble died in Dec. 2010. "Trouble was cremated, and her remains are being privately retained," said a spokeswoman. Helmsley wanted Trouble, who had accompanied her around the country in her private jet, interred with her in the 12,000 sq. ft. family mausoleum in New York's Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, but the cemetery's board refused the request. The remainder of the money willed to Trouble was finally freed up for less selfish uses: "The funds held in trust for her care have reverted to The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust for charitable purposes."

*Unlike this good-natured beast or this storied canine.

Darwin's drawers

2012-01-18T07:19:00.017-05:00

Not to be confused with Vickie's knickers, the title here refers to a remarkable rediscovery of antique slides prepared by botanist Joseph Hooker after being collected by Charles Darwin (1809-1882). Dr. Howard Falcon-Lang, Fellow at Royal Holloway, relates, “While searching through an old cabinet, I spotted some drawers marked ‘unregistered fossil plants’. I can’t resist a mystery, so I pulled one open. What I found inside made my jaw drop! Inside the drawer were hundreds of beautiful glass slides made by polishing fossil plants into thin translucent sheets. This process allows them to be studied under the microscope. Almost the first slide I picked up was labelled ‘C. Darwin Esq.’ This turned out to be a piece of fossil wood collected by Darwin during his famous Voyage of the Beagle in 1834!” Of the 314 fossil specimens, 17 had been gathered by Darwin when he was on the Beagle (slideshow here). The Geological Survey implemented a formal registry process for acquisitions in 1848, but by that time Hooker had left for an expedition in the Himalayas. After many relocations, the collection passed out of memory. Dr. John Ludden, Executive Director of the Geological Survey, remarked, “This is quite a remarkable discovery. It really makes one wonder what else might be hiding in our collections.”

This is only the latest reappearance of specimens collected by Darwin. In 2009 - the 200th anniversary of his birth - the only egg from the voyage on the H.M.S. Beagle was rediscovered by 80-year-old volunteer Liz Wetton while cataloging and reboxing the bird egg collection at Cambridge University's Zoology Museum (photos here). Wetton described, "It was an exhilarating experience. After working on the egg collections for 10 years this was a tremendous thing to happen. I've been moving the egg collection from the Victorian drawers into new boxes and when this one said 'C. Darwin' I thought it may be important." The find also reminds me of the painstaking documentation of a cabinet that belonged to a rival of Darwin after it was purchased at an antique shop (see Alfred Russel Wallace's cabinet and A second look at Wallace's cabinet).

ABOVE: Microscope slides from the Sir Joseph D. Hooker Collection, British Geological Survey: 1st image) Petrified conifer from near Whitby, North Yorkshire, U.K., 2nd image) Large conifer axis from Scarborough, Yorkshire, U.K., 3rd image) Stigmaria from Wolverhampton, West Midlands, U.K., 4th image) Strobili from unknown locality.

Brian's books

2012-01-17T09:44:00.013-05:00

I learned what American artist Brian Dettmer* could do with cassette tapes in the Skulls book I blogged about earlier this month. I googled to see what else he has done and glad I did! He has done a remarkable series of book sculptures (1st image, Das Weltheater," 2009, 2nd image, "Libraries of Health," 2008, 3rd image, "The Household Physicians," 2008"), and while I usually hate to see books destroyed as reading material, these - like the anonymous and whimsical sculptures left in libraries (see Library Leavings) - well warrant the transformation. I especially like the characterization of Dettmer's work, as described by the gallery that represents him in Chicago:

"Dettmer's process may also be likened to a dissection, as he uses exacto knives, tweezers, and other surgical tools to expose the inner structure of books for closer examination. The process of reading a book - of interpreting linguistic and visual cues - blinds readers to the format and logic of the medium they hold in their hands. Dettmer shifts our focus to the material organization of the book. Wafer-thin sheets of wood pulp capture only that which can be expressed in crisply printed ink. Consecutive pages force content to unfold sequentially. We see that the anatomy of the book determines the shape its subject takes, and ultimately informs the structure of human perception and knowledge."

You can see plenty of his book sculptures on the web at Impose Magazine, Lost at E Minor, My Modern Met, Oddity Central, and at his own Flickr photostream. "The resulting eroded surfaces and budding linkages are at once morbid and promising," concludes Antonia Pocock, doctoral student at at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts. Dettmer deconstructs rather than collages (see how he does it here), and if carving books up still bothers you, Carolyn Kellogg of the L.A. Times Blog points out that he frequently uses reference books, which get purged from shelves when they go out of date. Book corpses!

*He credits bloggers in part for the international acclaim he has received!

Pale penguins

2012-01-16T07:21:00.014-05:00

National Geographic recently carried an account of tourists* on one of their sponsored expeditions to Antarctica spotting a mutant penguin - and thereby I learned a new word. These birds in less-than-formal dress are called "isabelline penguins" and they are rare, but not unheard of. "They do pop up from time to time, but they're not particularly common. They're very obvious when you do see them. Amongst all the black backs you suddenly see a white one,'' says Australian biologist Megan Tierney. Isabellinism affects approximately 1 in 50,000 penguins of most species, examples of which I have collected above: royal penguin (1st image), chinstrap penguin (2nd image, video here), gentoo penguin (3rd image), adelie penguin (4th image). The term refers to the light color, distinguishing isabellinism (a form of leucism in which all types of skin pigmentation are reduced) from albinism (in which just the melanin is reduced or absent). South African researchers spotted only 2 isabelline specimens among the king penguins on Marion Island. Magellanic penguins, which live on South American coasts, seem to have the lowest incidences of the condition, according to penguin expert P. Dee Boersma of the University of Washington. The Ornithological Society of New Zealand, clarifies that isabellinism has not been observed in the emperor penguin, Fiordland crested penguin, erect-crested penguin, Galapagos penguin, or little (blue) penguin. Although instances of ostracism have been documented among penguins with plumage aberrations, isabellines do not appear to experience "racism" and have been observed carrying out normal nesting behavior and living for years.

*More information on visiting Antarctica at Cool Antarctica and the United States Antarctic Program.

CT scans

2012-01-15T07:12:00.020-05:00

CT scanners have been installed in veterinary facilities and zoos as a diagnostic tool for everything from aardvarks (1st image, "Bernaard" from the Brookfield Zoo near Chicago being scanned for an infected tooth in 2011) to - presumably - zebras. They are used routinely to scan domesticated dogs (4th image, an undated photo of a dog undergoing a CT scan at the Ohio State University Veterinary Medical Center) and wildcats (2nd image, a 16-year-old leopard named "Meili" scanned at the Taipei Zoo in 2010 to visualize a 40cm tumor in her chest before it was removed). Housecats (3rd image, a pet cat being scanned at the Animal Medical Center of New York in 2010) have been sent through the machine, and so have tortoises big (6th image, a Galapagos tortoise named "Arizona" positioned for a CT scan at Cornell University Veterinary Specialists in Stamford in 2011 to determine why one of its rear legs was not functioning) and turtles little (5th image, a Kemp's ridley sea turtle known as #57 with severe pneumonia scanned at Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine in 2010 to determine how best to treat the infection). Even gorillas (7th image, "Rafiki", a 25-year-old silverback lowland gorilla monitored during a CT scan at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs in 2009 prior to ear surgery) and horses (8th image, an 8-year-old gelding named "Sydney" being sent through the CT scanner at Massey University in Palmerston, New Zealand, in 2010 to diagnose his hoof problem) have been positioned and sent through the scanner.

But animals put in compromised positions do not experience the embarrassment and outrage that heavy human patients suffer at the hands of unequipped medical personnel - and insensitive newspaper editors - when they are referred to the zoo for medical imaging. Of 407lb Jennifer Walters, the American College of Radiology writes, "Aware that the New York City woman was too large to squeeze into an MRI scanner, the physician reasoned that if the nearby Bronx Zoo could image hippopotami, elephants, rhinos, and other large animals, surely it could accommodate her." At 275lbs, Carolyn Ragan says, “I thought, I know I’m big, but I’m not as big as an elephant." Recently revisited in the weird news, the issue is legitimate, as obesity increases and even open MRI scanners cannot accommodate those too overweight to fit far enough through the gantry without dissipating the magnetic field. When heavy patients do fit in the machines - which typically have a gantry diameter of 27.6" and a table capacity of 450lbs - the images are often of poor quality. But Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo veterinary technician Joel Pond, executive director of the Association of Zoo Veterinary Technicians, calls the search for super-sized scanners at zoos an urban legend. In an open letter to radiographers and their instructors, he writes:

"Very few zoos own a CT machine — only one of which is known to me — and none own MRIs. And that one zoo, along with veterinary specialty practices that do have this larger equipment, obtained them from the human side. Zoos do not have any special imaging equipment for large animals that is not already available in the human field. Our 400lb gorillas are imaged with standard radiograph machines and would not fit into any CT or MRI we could currently use. No matter how you slice it (pun intended), a 40"-wide ape will not fit through a 27" opening in a CT scanner."

An assessment by Harvard University Medical School of U.S. hospital emergency rooms showed that 10% or less were outfitted with large weight-capacity CT or MRI equipment, but that most of the animal facilities that are equipped are not licensed as alternate sources of imaging for human patients. Until the design changes that some manufacturers have implemented become standard, doctors will have to continue to rely on traditional radiography, ultrasound, and fluoroscopy.

Doughboy dog tags

2012-01-14T07:27:00.014-05:00

Frenchmen Michael Jean Toussaint and Claude Fonderflick have been using metal detectors to search for artifacts on World War I battlefields (1st image, troops who fought in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive). When they turn up military ID tags, they attempt to return them to the soldier's family. They have succeeded in some instances and are still researching others:

Kent Potter
Unit 139, of the 134th Infantry Division, Company M, U. S. Army
Found: Liverdun, Lorraine, France
Returned: Cottonwood Falls, Kansas, U.S.
A ceremony was held at the Chase County Historical Museum on Thursday to restore the dog tag of Infantryman Kent Potter (3rd image) to his family 94 years after it was lost. Potter did not lose his life on the battlefield, but possibly while hauling supplies when - according to family legend - he put his gas mask on his mule to protect it from a mustard gas attack. Potter returned to his home state to tell such stories, marry, and raise a family. His son, Dale Potter (2nd image, examining a photo with Doris Archer), accepted the medal (photo here), who said, "I'm amazed that these 2 people in France still remember and appreciate what the United States did for their country....My dad didn't die there, he came home. There were so many who did not get to come home."

Leonard Stoltz
Found: A field near the village of Vaxainville, France
Returned: Montezuma, Ohio
Audrey Stoltz (photo here) and her siblings Jack Stoltz (photo here) and Joyce Ann Kiser claimed the military ID of their father from the 2 Frenchmen and received it by mail. They were glad to have it, even though they remember very little about him. One day in the 1930s, Leonard Stoltz - who was a deputy sheriff at the time and had served in the military before he married - went to the grocery store and never came back. They had only learned in 1987 that their father had died in 1968 at a veterans hospital in Miami and had been buried in a veterans cemetery in Andersonville, Georgia. The dog tag only answers a few of the many questions they are left with. Says Jack, "When he left, we went to live with our grandparents. Unfortunately, the house burnt up, and all the pictures were lost. The dog tag is the only thing we have."

The dog tag of Walter Renfro was returned to a descendant in El Paso, Illinois. "When they first called, my husband and I thought it was some kind of scam. No one is that nice anymore," said Renfro's granddaughter, Rita Drake, who is helping Toussaint and Fonderflick search for relatives of 2 other soldiers, Frank Kubas (Kansas City, Kansas) and Charles R. Thomas (home state uncertain).

New carnivorous plant

2012-01-13T07:44:00.008-05:00

Remember the genuflecting plant I blogged about in September? Well, this newly discovered one has an even neater trick. It may not look like much above the savannahs of its Brazilian habitat (1st image), but beneath the sand the Philcoxia minensis extends sticky leaves (2nd image) that ingest nematodes (3rd image, microscopic view, more here). Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this plant eats worms! Though this article suggests that it gobbles up earthworms, nematodes are typically less than 2.5mm long and the underground leaves are only about the size of a pinhead. But this is enough to qualify Philcoxia minensis as a carnivorous plant in the ranks of the Venus flytrap, the pitcher plant, and the bladderwort. Like the Venus flytrap, P. minensis lives in nutrient-poor soil and has leaves equipped with stalk-covered glands that help detect prey, so researchers suspected that it was using its subterranean leaves to capture animals. "We usually think about leaves only as photosynthetic organs, so at first sight, it looks awkward that a plant would place its leaves underground where there is less sunlight. Why would evolution favor the persistence of this apparently unfavorable trait?" asks plant ecologist Rafael Silva Oliveira. He and his colleagues at the State University of Campinas in Sao Paolo, Brazil, used chemical analysis to determine that the plant was absorbing nutrients directly from the worms rather than from the surrounding soil. Their study proves that P. Minensis is among the mere .2% of flowering plant species known to digest meat.

2 deaths, 2 dogs

2012-01-12T08:13:00.015-05:00

Barney
Kayaker Rory O'Conner was fishing off Sarasota, Florida, on Saturday when a dog swam up to him (video here) at least 1/2 mile away from beach access. "He was really really scared and he was shivering at first I thought he was cold but then I could tell he was really scared. He had to swim pretty far and he was pretty beat up. His paw was bleeding and he had a bunch of scrapes." O'Conner quickly brought the dog to shore and his sister rushed him to the vet. A microchip held contact information for his owners, the Chens (photo here), so the vet called their house to let them know the dog had been found. Unfortunately, just moments earlier, Wellington Chen had just been told by police that his wife of 26 years had been struck and killed by a 22-year-old drunk driver. Donna Chen (1st image), 53-year-old mother of 2, was walking Barney on the sidewalk of a busy state road. When she was hit from behind, the dog fled the scene, running away from traffic and ending up in the Gulf of Mexico. "I think Barney coming back to us was a total miracle," said the bereft Dr. Chen.

Oly
On Wednesday of last week, a hungry and exhausted Welsh corgi showed up at the Alpine Motel in Cooke City, Montana, though his family was no longer there. "When I first saw the dog, it was sitting in front of their room staring at the door," said proprietor Robert Weinstein. Oly's owners Dave and Kerry Corcoran Gaillard had taken him along when they went backcountry skiing 4 days earlier, but only Kerry had returned. After shouting to his wife to head for the trees, 44-year-old Dave Gaillard (2nd image) and the dog had been swept up and buried by an avalanche. The search and rescue team recovered Dave's body, but team member Bill Whittle was able to drive the surviving pet (video here) back to Bozeman - where Dave's daughter Marguerite, 11, was putting photos of Oly on poster board as a memorial. His stepdaughter 15-year-old Silver Brelsford (3rd image, with Oly, video here) said, "She found out when she was halfway done with that that Ole was still alive." Dave's Dad called Oly's survival "beyond belief. It truly is a miracle.” Dave's widow told reporters, “I was excited, but it amplified the loss of Dave a little bit. You automatically wish it could be Dave.” And Silver said, "It didn’t completely ease the pain, but it helped a tiny bit.”

Mourning embroidery

2012-01-11T08:15:00.012-05:00

After a lifetime of collecting, Betty Ring has cornered the market on antique samplers and other embroidery by American schoolgirls. On Jan. 22nd, she will be letting some of her collection go in a sale by Sotheby's (see on-line auction catalog here). Ring is the foremost scholar in this area and wrote the definitive reference book in the field: Girlhood Embroidery: American Samplers and Pictorial Needlework, 1650-1850 (read text here). The book is referenced in the description of an embroidered mourning picture in the National Museum of American History. The Ring collection contains plenty of similar examples, most identified by city and many attributed to specific girls practicing with needle and thread in 19th c. New England. Many of the pieces, which document the rising merchant class in America that had the wealth and aspiration to educate their young daughters, became treasured family heirlooms and now command a dear price - an estimated $50,000+ in the case of the 3rd image above. The auction lot of 175 examples is so impressive that many of today's embroiderers are traveling to New York to see it, whether or not they intend to place a bid. One of the symbols of grief requisite in such mourning scenes - also seen on gravestones - is the weeping willow.

1st image) Embroidered and Painted Silk Mourning Picture Sacred to the Memory of Josiah Torrey, probably Boston, c. 1800, 2nd image) Embroidered and Painted Silk Mourning Picture by Betsey Clarke, Miss Patten’s School, Hartford, Connecticut, c. 1809, 3rd image) Silk Embroidered and Painted Mourning Picture to the Memory of the Illustrious George Washington, Philadelphia, c. 1807.

Thanks to Cris for bringing this to my attention during her visit this weekend. She is acquainted with the woman who served as conservator for many of Betty Ring's pieces.

Implosions

2012-01-10T08:33:00.016-05:00

"I watch 'MythBusters' and they inspired me to blow a building up," said 7-year-old Maxwell Hinton. Treated for neuroblastoma, Maxwell had his wish granted by the Make-A-Wish Foundation over the weekend. He had to travel from his hometown of Fresno, California, to Huron, Ohio, to push the button that initiated the implosion of a massive ConAgra grain silo (images above). Between 30,000 and 40,000 people watched the building come down, a prerequisite to selling the 11-acre property. "I had a great time," Maxwell said afterward.

Watching video of implosions can be mesmerizing, although I have never seen one in person. Here are a few I found with the locations identified (zillions more on YouTube, note: mild expletives):

When I was still living in Alexandria, Virginia, state and federal agencies held an essay contest to determine who would have the satisfaction of detonating the explosion that brought down the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, which carries traffic into Washington, D.C. The drawbridge was replaced in 2006 and a 1/2-mile stretch of elevated steel girders that supported it was destroyed at the push of a lever by Dan Ruefly. The commuter had driven over the span twice a day for 28 years and was in an accident on it in 1999 that crushed his hip.

Find-a-fish

2012-01-09T08:58:00.009-05:00

Here's a twist. The mimic octupus, which can impersonate fish and sea snakes, is itself mimicked - by a small fish that camouflages itself against the octopus's pattern. The 1st-of-their-kind photos above (click them if you can't see the fish) are from a video shot off the coast of South Sulawesi Province, Indonesia, by researchers from the University of Göttingen, Germany. Godehard Kopp captured the black-marble jawfish disguising itself in order to use the octopus as protection while it forages for food. After examining the footage, Dr. Luiz Rocha at the California Academy of Sciences stated, "This is a unique case in the reefs not only because the model for the jawfish is a mimic itself, but also because this is the first case of a jawfish involved in mimicry." Fellow ichthyologist Rich Ross added, "We've never seen anything like that before....We're not even sure if the jawfish are actually one species. The one from Indonesia might even be a new species."

Also discovered hiding recently was a large and healthy bottom-dwelling sand sole, a flatfish (example here) that managed to escape notice for 15 years in a 40,000-liter rockpool tank at the Blue Planet Aquarium in Cheshire, U.K. Acting curator Colin Grist said, "Although we haven't been aware of its existence it seems to have been doing extremely well. It's in perfect condition and has obviously been feeding well and probably waiting until the lights go out to go hunting. It's extraordinary that it's managed to have remained hidden for so long but it does go to show just how well evolved it is to its natural environment."

Whoopers grounded

2012-01-08T07:58:00.017-05:00

In the movie, they are Canada geese, but in reality they are whooping cranes - so named because of their vocalizations (hear them here), but shortened by birders to "whoopers." These big birds are in the news because their ultralight-led migration has been stalled this year by the FAA more than halfway to their destination on Florida's Gulf Coast. Bred and hatched at the Patuxent Wildlife Refuge Center in Maryland, the endangered whooping cranes are then transported to the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin for training. When the ultralight takes flight, they follow it like it's their mother. But the migration is not without difficulty (weather) and danger (poaching). This time, they have been stalled in Franklin County, Alabama, by federal regulators who are looking into whether the journey violates regulations because the pilot was being paid by the conservation group instead of working for free. The rules in question - that only pilots with commercial pilot licenses can fly for hire and that sport aircraft from being flown to benefit a business or charity - are iintended to safeguard the public by preventing businesses or charities from taking passengers for joyrides in sometimes risky planes. In their defense, Operation Migration explains that their pilots are hired for a wide range of non-flying skills and duties, but volunteer their time as pilots. Based on the acceptance of their explanation in 2010 and the passing of an aircraft inspection in August, they began the 2011 season. They have applied to the FAA for a waiver and voluntarily stopped the flight until the matter has been resolved and the birds can make their celebrated arrival in Florida. "We hoped that would happen during the Christmas break, but it is taking longer than anticipated. The FAA is in support of this project and is working hard to resolve the matter in our favor." FAA spokesman Lynn Lunsford says, "We're considering that waiver," but didn't know if the decision would be made by the time the whoopers would return to Wisconsin in the spring. If not, says field supervisor Peter Fasbender of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, "the only option we can think of as a contingency would be to transport them by ground to release sites in Alabama or in Florida." He's confident that the young cranes would make it back to Wisconsin in the spring by joining other cranes making the journey. The grounded birds are part of a 10-year effort to re-establish an Eastern flyway that disappeared in the late 1800s. The cranes flying that route died off, and by 1941 the species had dwindled to only 15 birds. There are now roughly 100 whoopers in the eastern U.S., but the population is very vulnerable. In 2007, 17 of 18 yearlings were killed by Florida tornadoes.

1st image) Whooping crane photographed by Ecobirder over Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin and made available on Camera Critters, 2nd image) A young crane photographed by Dr. Bernhard Wessling while being trained to respond to recorded crane calls by a costumed volunteer at Patuxent Wildlife Refuge Center, 3rd image) A still from video showing an ultralight leading 9 whooping cranes during this year's Operation Migration.

Suited

2012-01-07T08:49:00.021-05:00

There are many uses for a jumpsuit that simulates what being old feels like physically. I remember seeing one on TV some 20 years ago being used by the designers of airline cabins (probably to see how closely they could space the seats). Engineers at MIT have now produced the most recent - and no doubt most advanced - incarnation. Let's compare it to 2 other "old age suits":

AGNES (1st and 2nd images, video here), acronym for "Age Gain Now Empathy System" (earlier version called "Daisy")
Designed by: MIT's AgeLab
Target age: 75 years old
Condition: Symptoms of arthritis and diabetes, including imbalance, limited joint mobility, decreased strength and mobility in hands and wrists, hearing loss, inflexible spine and hamstrings, shortened gait.
Users: Orthopedic device designers, clothing makers, car companies, and retailers interested in understanding the limitations of older consumers.
Comment: "The business of old age demands new tools. While focus groups and observations and surveys can help you understand what the older consumer needs and wants, young marketers never get that 'Ah ha!' moment of having difficulty opening a jar, or getting in and out of a car. That's what AGNES provides. The three words we associate with wearing AGNES are fatigue, friction and frustration. AGNES is not the destiny of everybody. She is a badly behaved lady who didn't eat and exercise very well. A secondary benefit we've found with AGNES is that it has become a powerful tool to get younger people to invest in their long-term health," says AgeLab's director Joseph Coughlin.

THIRD AGE SUIT (3rd and 4th images, video here), named after the European concept that life goes through 3 stages
Designed by: Ford Motor Co.
Target age: 65 years old
Condition: Stiff joints; diminished dexterity; added weight around the waist; reduced sense of touch; cataracts, declining vision, and increased sensitivity to glare; and some loss of mobility such as what would be experienced during recovery from surgery or an accident.
Users: Car designers, hospital architects, and building contractors.
Comment: “We developed this suit to show our engineers and designers what it feels like to be an older person. When you are young, you think you’re designing for everybody, but you can’t understand the range of people and their limitations. And you should always be aware that ageing is not a disease but a natural process of life,”says Dr. Achim Lindner, physician at the European Ford Research Centre.

SENIOSIMULATION (5th and 6th images, video here)
Designed by: Seniosphère
Target age: 55 years and older
Condition: Physical sensations of aging in joints and muscles, hearing, and sight.
Users: Designers of products and services for the elderly, architects of retail and public spaces, and nurses and health care trainees.
Comment: "Seniosphere's approach always gives you 360° of the whole person....This enables you to step back and understand their experience and consumer environment beyond a business or product or service. To help you better understand...what it means to grow old, we [put you] in the shoes of a senior."

As the article about AGNES indicates, suits have also been designed to simulate pregnancy and obesity.

Soils spoils

2012-01-06T07:58:00.017-05:00

Now and then I find the booking photo of an arrestee striking enough to be featured in Quigley's Cabinet (see Heads and Catching a bear) - but only if the associated story is sufficiently blogworthy. Meet 36-year-old Denver resident Carmen Lucette Tisch (1st image). What does she have to do with influential American abstract expressionist Clyfford Still (1904-1980), pictured in his New York studio (2nd image)? Read on...

"1949-A-No. 1"
This 1949 painting by Clyfford Still was sold by Sotheby’s on Nov. 9, 2011, at an auction to benefit the new Clyfford Still Museum, which has 825 of the artist's works in its collection. The winning bid by telephone for $61.7 million soared past its $35 million high estimate and eclipsed the artist's prior auction record of $21.2 million.

"1947-Y-No. 2"
Painted by Still in 1947 and priced to sell for up to $20 million, this canvas also sold to a telephone bidder at the same auction for $31.4 million. The premium value of these works by a leader of the abstract expressionist movement is said to lie in the fact that only 11 of Clyfford Still's paintings have come up for auction over the past decade.

"PH-1033''
Minutes after buying "1949-A-No. 1," the telephone bidder paid another $19.6 million for this 1976 Still painting which had only been expected to fetch up to $15 million. Altogether, the auction raised a total of $114.1 million for the endowment of the museum, established by the City of Denver under the terms of the artist's will.

"1957-J-No. 2"
This painting by Still, which measures nearly 9 1/2' x 13' and is appraised at $30-40 million, was hanging in the museum until late December. That's when an apparently drunk Tisch caused $10,000 worth of damage to it by punching it, scratching it, and lowering her pants to rub her bare buttocks on it.

Tisch, arrested at the time of the incident and held on bond, has now been charged with felony criminal mischief. It's unclear if this was an act of protest and whether it was inspired by the Occupy movement, members of whom demonstrated against economic inequality outside Sotheby's in New York at the time the Still paintings were being auctioned. Also unclear is whether the vandalism will damage the piece more than just physically or whether - ironically - it will add to its value as the incident become's part of the painting's history.

Violin violence

2012-01-05T11:25:00.009-05:00

There are 2 violin stories circulating in the weird news. One contrasts with an unfortunate earlier (and less malicious) incident:

Jan. 2012:
A reader named Erica wrote to Regretsy about a heartbreaking experience she recently had with PayPal about a violin carrying the mark of early 20th c. French instrument-maker Maurice Bourguignon (like the example, 2nd image):

"I sold an old French violin to a buyer in Canada, and the buyer disputed the label. This is not uncommon. In the violin market, labels often mean little and there is often disagreement over them. Some of the most expensive violins in the world have disputed labels, but they are works of art nonetheless. Rather than have the violin returned to me, PayPal made the buyer DESTROY the violin in order to get his money back. They somehow deemed the violin as 'counterfeit' even though there is no such thing in the violin world. The buyer was proud of himself, so he sent me a photo of the destroyed violin (1st image). I am now out a violin that made it through WWII as well as $2500. This is of course, upsetting. But my main goal in writing to you is to prevent PayPal from ordering the destruction of violins and other antiquities that they know nothing about..."

Representatives from PayPal defend their advice, which is included in the fine print, and the matter is under dispute.

Feb. 2008:
After virtuoso British violinist David Garrett, then 26, finished performing at the Barbican, he tripped and landed on his 290-year-old instrument. He describes, "I was all packed up and ready to go when I slipped. People said it was as if I'd trodden on a banana skin. I fell down a flight of steps and on to the case. When I opened it, the violin was in pieces. I couldn't speak and I couldn't get up. I didn't even know if I was hurt – I didn't care. I've had that violin for 8 years. It was like losing a friend." Made by early 18th c. Italian luthier Antonio Stradivari, the violin could have fetched more than £1,000,000 and was expected to cost £60,000 just to repair, and it likely never sounded the same again. Due to perform again the following night, Garrett was loaned another Stradivarius by a violin dealer - who made sure it was guarded by a 3-man security team.

And the other parallels earlier stories:

Dec. 2011:
Taiwanese violinist Muchen Hsieh, studying at the New England Conservatory in Boston, hopped a bus to Philadelphia and didn't realize that she had left her instrument in an overhead bin until after she had been picked up at her destination. Valued at $172,000, the violin had been made in 1835 by Vincenzo Jorio in Naples - and it wasn't even hers! It was on loan from the Chi Mei Culture Foundation. Hsieh called the bus company immediately, but it took 3 days to locate the instrument in a holding facility.

Aug. 2009:
Korean musician Hahn-Bin (photo here), then 22, played a concert in the Hamptons, took a bus nfortunto Lincoln Center, and then caught a cab to his apartment in Chinatown. He was exhausted and it was by then 12:40AM. Unfortunately, he left his violin in the taxi - and it was not just any violin. It had been crafted in the early 19th c. by Italian violin-maker Giovanni Francesco Pressenda and was valued at up to $600,000. He quickly realized his mistake and called 311. The driver had gone home to New Jersey unaware of his precious cargo, but was tracked by GPS. Violinist and violin were reunited later that day.

Accidentally leaving one's musical instrument behind in a means of transport has been called "pulling a Yo-Yo Ma," referring to the time in 1999 when the American cellist (photo here) left his $2.5 million cello, made in the 18th c. by Italian luthier Domenico Montagnana, in the trunk of a New York City cab (from which it was retrieved later that afternoon). “You could probably string together an entire orchestra from the folks that have left cellos, violas and violins in the back of cabs,” said Matthew W. Daus, the chairman of the Taxi and Limousine Commission. In fact, there is a blog...

Chilly churches

2012-01-04T08:03:00.017-05:00

A Bavarian ice church (1st image, more photos here) has been built by residents and blessed by a Catholic priest. The temporary ice church that cost $200,000 and seats 190 was constructed in Mitterfirmiansreut, Germany, on the spot that an ice church stood in 1911. At that time, according to Father Steinbeisser, villagers were protesting the rejection of their pleas for their own church, which meant they had to continue to travel 90 minutes to a neighbouring town to celebrate Mass. "It was meant as an act of provocation. Believers from the village got together and built a snow church because they didn't have a church here." When I read about this ice church, my thoughts ran to ice hotels. I only recently learned that there are more than one, and I was eager to compare chapels. In fact there are several (and this list may not be comprehensive):

Jukkasjärvi, Sweden (2nd and 3rd images, more photos here, video of chapel here)
Saariselka, Finland
Kemi, Finland (video of chapel here)
Kirkenes, Norway
Oppland, Norway
Québec, Canada (4th image, more photos here, virtual tour of chapel here)
Făgăraş Mountains, Romania (photos here)

Many of the ice hotels have partnered with a travel agent to increase bookings and offer special wedding packages. No such deals in Bavaria, where the bishop has ruled out any Masses, baptisms, or weddings for theological reasons. Meanwhile, Sweden's ice church - with its 6 rows of benches covered with reindeer skins - has hosted 1,000 weddings since 1994!

Noma's negative space

2012-01-03T11:05:00.011-05:00

Noma Bar (b. 1973 in Israel) is a London-based graphic designer whose work you may be familiar with, even if you don't know his name, since over 550 of his illustrations - including more than 60 magazine covers - have been appeared in publications including The Economist, Esquire, and The Guardian. Of his stark style, he says, “I am after the maximum communication with minimum elements.” This is demonstrated by the illustrations above: "Malaria" and "The Ultimate Spider Hunter." Bar is a master at the use of negative space, as the agency that represents him describes: "With a limited pallet he subtly and precisely manipulates shape and form where familiar symbols and pictograms evolve to form new meaning. Negative and positive spaces tessellate creating several images in one, that sometimes need a few moments to see the embedded, sometimes poignant, message." Noma Bar has published a book about his very effective technique which the publisher says "showcases Bar’s singular ability to render complex issues of public policy, global economics, race relations, politics, sex, crime and national identity with deftly selected lines and colors." I just put name and artwork (more examples here, here, and here) together after seeing Noma Bar represented in the engaging and beautifully-produced The Book of Skulls that I received for Christmas from my friend Deb - and that I'm sure will lead to further posts...

Ring resurfaces

2012-01-02T07:43:00.012-05:00

Lena married Ola Påhlsson in 1984 wearing a ring she had designed herself: white gold with 7 small diamonds. She had worn it for 10 years when it disappeared. Imagine her surprise in Oct. 2011 when she pulled up a small carrot from one of her garden boxes and there it was 16 years later! Lena had taken the ring off in 1995 to do some Christmas baking with her 6-year-old daughter Anna at their home in Langlet Nørve, Mora, Sweden. She was upset when it disappeared from the counter and says, "I looked and looked for it. The ring symbolized's my and my husband's love." But it was nowhere to be found and had apparently fallen down or behind the sink. Lena was hoping it would turn up when they renovated the kitchen and removed the floor tiles 4 years ago, but no such luck. "Then I thought that it's gone. The ring will never be found," she says, but she may have had it in her hands when she filled the garden boxes with compost. This fall, when harvesting her vegetables for the last time before the winter season, Lena saw something glimmer on a carrot so small she had almost discarded it. She called out to Anna, now 22, who came outside with the camera. When Ola came home, he could not believe his eyes. "That the carrot would begin to sprout in the middle of the ring is quite incredible." While the carrot has grown inside the ring, Lena has grown outside it: she now has to have it enlarged so it will fit on her finger again.

Note: After seeing this story in the American weird news, I went directly to the Swedish sources I have linked to and used Google Translate.

Quigley's top 10

2012-01-01T08:47:00.027-05:00

Happy New Year! On this 1st day of 2012, I offer you a look back at what I consider to be my best blog posts of last year (in descending order), for the reasons indicated:

CHEVALIER JACKSON

My favorite post of the year demonstrates the coincidences and collegiality I revel in: 1) I blogged about pica, 2) within minutes I heard from an artist follower who did a collage series based on swallowed objects - and whose friend was writing a book about the doctor who collected them, 3) I arrange to review the book in Fortean Times, 4) my 90-year-old friend reads the review and tells me that Dr. Chevalier had treated her baby in 1943! Added bonus: A contemporary story about a woman who swallowed silverware and was x-rayed with a stomach full of forks and spoons.

BLOSSOM
I find it especially interesting when 2 or more of my interests (here taxidermy and history) intersect, so I was amazed to know that the hide of the very cow that gave birth to immunology had been preserved. Added bonus: The glowing response I received from the immunologist whose photos I used, who signed it, "Poxicologically yours."

SKELETAL AFFECTION
When I read an article forwarded by a follower about the archaeological discovery of a pair of skeletons found with hands clasped, I was able to find several other examples. Added bonus: I love a morbid topic!

OVERDUE
I love to compile a list, but not just a list for its own sake - in this case, of something I was curious to know and happy to research. Added bonus: The strangely angled photo of the book returned in 2009, 99 years past due.

CAVE PEARLS
Here I was able to share a bit of knowledge I had picked up only the day before from a TV documentary and to sort through many gorgeous images of these formations. Added bonus: Including them in Quigley's Cabinet is almost as good as owning one!

THEY BOTH EAT BADGER
Because I pride myself on doing something more than simply repeating a weird news story, I was glad a recent interview reminded me that I had read about someone with the same taste not long before, so that I could compare them. Added bonus: I included their descriptions of the taste, similar to what I had done in Audubon ate 'em.

HUGUETTE'S EMPTY HOMES
This post represents my persistence in sorting out the details in a number of accounts of a compelling story so that I can offer something both succinct and thorough. Added bonus: Positive feedback was welcome recompense for the hours I put into this one.

OCULAR ENGINEERING
As with the beaver post above, I had great satisfaction in juxtaposing 2 similar stories - in this case, about art projects - that I read about in the weird news. Added bonus: The photos of the artists paired up perfectly.

EARTH ROOM
With this post, I combined a bit of reminiscence with research that led to the surprising fact that this art installation, which I had thought was temporary, is still being maintained after 30+ years. Added bonus: The link to a video of the caretaker.

DEAD BIRDS AS SIZE SCALE
Combining a remarkable fossil with an unusual size scale makes for a great photo - and a not-so-lengthy blog post. Added bonus: I was reminded of (and linked to) the work of one of my favorite photographers.

BIO

I am a writer of nonfiction diagnosed with MS in 1991 (I write about that occasionally in the Health Diary on my blog). I went on long-term medical leave after working at Georgetown University for 22 years. I have been blogging daily since Sept. 2008 with no plans to quit.

Now that I've compiled this sampling, I could use your help in boosting my readership. If you would kindly e-mail, share, retweet, etc., this link to your own friends and followers, I would be grateful. This is a labor of love and I do not intend to commercialize Quigley's Cabinet, but I do like an audience, and continue to appreciate your comments and suggestions. Thanks, and wishing a happy and healthy new year to you all!

Stairs...

2011-12-31T08:28:00.010-05:00

...do
Dulsberg, Germany, has been ornamented with a walk-on sculpture compliments of Hamburg artists Heike Mutter and Ulrich Genth. The staired roller coaster, entitled "Tiger & Turtle - Magic Mountain," took roughly 8 weeks to construct and debuted in November. Made of zinc-plated steel at a cost of $2.7 million (€2.08 million) it stands 67 1/2' (20.6m) and has a track 721 1/2' (220m) long. Although visitors can't walk the loop, the rest of the sculpture offers a "thrill-ride inspired view" of the surrounding German countryside. According to the press release, "Tiger & Turtle" embodies the contradiction of speed and deadlock, and places it within the context of change in the region and its turn toward renaturation and restructuring. The site-specific public sculpture, which can be characterized as absurdist because of the inherent expectation its appearance sets up, is destined to become a trans‐regional landmark while refusing definite interpretation.
...don't
Medellin, Colombia, has been outfitted with a giant outdoor escalator thanks to urban officials. The $6.7 million project spares the 12,000 residents of a tough hillside neighborhood of having to climb up and down 100s of large steps that are the equivalent of ascending and descending a 28-story building. "This is a dream come true," say residents, whose hike is hereby shortened from 35 minutes to 6. The electric stairway is divided into 6 sections with an overall length of 1,260' (384m), and use is free. The Comuna 13 district has been plagued by violence, but Mayor Alonso Salazar says, "...lately this has been receding and we hope this social package will help it move forward." He concludes, "It turned out very well."

Yarn and you

2011-12-30T07:51:00.014-05:00

My friend Sue,* an accomplished knitter, has brought something to my attention which puts a smile on my face and has turned my blog into a project today. Artists and craftspersons have taken up the challenge of anatomical knitting (and cross stitch). I have posted examples above - in relative anatomical position, if not in size scale - with links to sources and alternative body parts:

BRAIN
The brain (1st image) was knitted by Missouri psychiatrist Karen Norberg. Sarah Illenberger has also knitted a brain.

SKULL
This jaw (2nd image) is a detail of the complete skeleton knitted by Los Angeles multi-media artist Ben Cuevas for his “Transcending the Material” installation.

THYROID
The thyroid gland (3rd image) was knitted by Ben Cuevas for his installation "The Hospital Room."

HEART
The heart (4th image) was knitted by German artist Sarah Illenberger. Ben Cuevas has also knitted a heart.

DIGESTIVE SYSTEM
This digestive tract (5th image) was knitted by Matie Trewe. Ben Cuevas and Sarah Illenberger have also knitted intestines.

FEMALE REPRODUCTIVE SYSTEM
This cross stitch (6th image) was made by Christa Rowley as part of her "Female Anatomy Cross Section" series, which also includes a breast and an ovary. M.K. Carroll designed and knitted a uterus, as has a blogger named Kris, while others have attempted the external male and female genitalia.

RECTUM
The rectum (7th image) was knitted by Ben Cuevas as part of his installation "The Hospital Room."

As you will see from my Halloween slideshow if you scroll down, I designed and sewed my own set of internal organs for my organ donor costume in 1994, with the added bonus that I used velcro so that each was detachable!

Sue, if I buy the pattern will you knit me a dissected lab rat? ;-)

Talker

2011-12-29T17:25:00.006-05:00

I gravitated to the images above in a group of color photographs from the 1940s in the Library of Congress. Reproduced by the Denver Post,* they carry the following captions:

1st image) Barker at the grounds at the Vermont State Fair. Rutland, Vermont, September 1941. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.

2nd image) Backstage at the "girlie" show at the Vermont State Fair. Rutland, Vermont, September 1941. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.

3rd image) At the Vermont State Fair. Rutland, Vermont, September 1941. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word "barker" dates back in this sense to before 1859, when it was included in a slang dictionary as meaning "a man employed to cry at the doors of gaffs, shows, and puffing shops, to entice people inside." But my friend James Taylor, sideshow historian and snappy dresser, will tell you that those in the business - and he knows and has known plenty - never use the word "barker" and instead always refer to the person in front of the tent attempting to "turn the tip" as the "talker" and the person addressing the crowd inside the attraction as the "lecturer."

*Thanks, Barbara!

Happy accident

2011-12-28T07:53:00.005-05:00

Captivated by the accompanying photo (1st image), I read this article last night and learned about an interesting turnaround here in Florida. The American crocodile has made it off the endangered species list! Their numbers have grown from less than 300 in the state 40 years ago to more than 1,500 in South Florida* today, moving it to "threatened" status. Their increase in numbers is chalked up to a habitat inadvertently provided by the Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant in Biscayne Bay. The plant has 168 miles (270 km) of cooling canals in a closed-loop network (2nd image) - the largest in the world - that essentially serves as a giant radiator. "The way the cooling canal system was designed actually turned out to be pretty good for crocodile nesting. It wasn't designed for crocodiles, but they've done a very good job of maintaining that area." says John Wrublik, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The canals and berms at the power plant site have in part compensated for the loss of habitat elsewhere and the plant is remote, making it difficult for humans to disturb the animals or their habitat. The 1st crocodile nest was discovered in 1977; now as many as 400 crocodiles up to 15' (4.5m) long and as heavy as 2,000lbs (907kg) call the power plant home. Biologists on staff monitor population growth and survival rates under guidelines set by state and federal regulators. They survey the reptiles at night, weighing them, marking them with white (to keep them from being captured twice on the same night), and slipping them back into the water. If it's a 1st-time capture, the crocodile is tagged with a microchip to identify it and track its fate, which may be a meal for a fellow croc, one of which was found with 8 microchips in its belly! As deadly as they may be to each other, the crocodiles have not been harmed by their proximity to the nuclear plant. I'm happy to relay that the scientists have detected no sign of radiation in the animals.

*Crocodiles are so sensitive to cold that their only U.S. habitat is in South Florida.

Revisiting the Russian mummies

2011-12-27T08:07:00.014-05:00

Lest you think I've gone all soft and sappy in recent days, I bring you something exceedingly morbid today. Thanks to Franck for bringing to my attention the new details (including a video, screen grabs above) that have emerged since my earlier post:

WHO
A 45-year-old Russian scholar has been dubbed “The Lord of the Mummies” by the local papers after he was arrested for desecrating more than 150 graves and bringing some of the occupants home with him. Anatolia Moskvin was fluent in 13 languages, well-traveled, and respected as a historian and journalist. He was an expert on cemeteries and had bylines entitled “Great Walks Around Cemeteries” and “What the Dead Said” in the weekly paper Necrologies that publishes obituaries and stories about cemeteries and the illustrious dead.

WHAT
When authorities searched Moskvin's 3-bedroom apartment, they found the mummified corpses of 29 women and girls ages 15-26: 28 sandwiched among piles of papers and other belongings, and another in the garage. The bodies of the exhumed women were dressed in gowns, hats, and stockings. Moskvin had compiled up-to-date biographical information for each of them, as well as instructions for producing his life-sized "dolls." A local resident says, “...he placed musical boxes inside the mummies, set them up around his living room and had tea, while they were singing for him.”

WHEN
Moskvin spent years researching more than 750 cemeteries in the area, collecting epitaphs, listing local place names, and describing mausoleums. “All his life he was obsessed with walking around hundreds of cemeteries, studying and documenting the graves. There is nobody like him in Russia," says the editor of Necrologies Alexei Yesin. Publisher Oleg Riabov commissioned Moskvin 3 years ago to put his knowledge to work compiling a list of the burials in the region, but the project had not been published.

WHERE
The cemeteries Moskvin studied and plundered are located in the 40 regions of Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. His house is located closest to Krasnoetnovskoe, one of the city cemeteries. Law enforcement officers, who had earlier detained him on suspicion of theft of nonferrous metals, now hope to prosecute Moskvin for repeated cases of vandalism and desecration of graves.

WHY
According to the video description, a schoolmate attributes Moskvin's obsession with the dead to an experience he was forced to undergo as a child. Moskvin confirms this and elaborates in an October issue of Necrologies that at the age of 13 he was stopped on his way home from school. Men in black suits dragged him to a coffin and compelled him to kiss a deceased 11-year-old girl named Natasha Petrova. “I kissed her once, then again, then again,” Moskvin writes, describing a posthumous marriage ritual in which Petrova's mother put wedding rings on his and the dead girl’s fingers. "From what I hear, the most probable diagnosis for Moskvin’s psychological problem is necrophilia and situational fetishism," says psychiatrist Yan Goland, head of the Korefei Center for Psychological Rehabilitation.

HOW
Moskvin's editor became increasingly reluctant to publish his writings: “Many of his articles enlighten his sensual interest in deceased young women, which I took for romantic and somewhat childish fantasies the talented writer emphasized,” says Yesin. Moskvin's neighbors were not unduly suspicious of the odors that his open door emitted: “Our buildings all stink of something that rots in the basements,” says one of them, who suggests that some of the blame lies with his family: “His respectable parents and friends surely knew about his psychiatric sickness, but nobody sent him to the hospital for treatment."

The authorities have not offered Moskvin any psychological treatment and have stated that they intend to try him as if he were entirely sane. Says Riabov, “This is a tragedy, that the investigation accuses Moskvin as if he were a sane person. We fear that instead of being treated properly in the hospital, he is going to be killed in jail.”

Post Christmas

2011-12-26T07:51:00.016-05:00

Holiday card mailed in 1911 (1st image)
COMPARE TO THE 1ST COMMERCIALLY-PRODUCED CHRISTMAS CARD
Welsh builder Mark Hobbs was renovating a 3-story Victorian house in the Uplands, Swansea, when something fell through a hole in the ceiling and floated to his feet. Dated Dec. 21st, 1911, and signed by A. and G. Grobity, it was a holiday greeting inscribed, “Good Remembrance of your Friends.” Hobbs says, "I opened the card and was absolutely stunned....It must have been stuffed in a cavity under the floorboards for all that time. The card is a bit simpler than our jazzy cards of today and it makes you think about how Christmas was celebrated 100 years ago." Intrigued, the builder tried to trace any relations locally or nationally, but had no success. "I would be fascinated to find out some more about the card and who wrote it." He plans to hand over the card to the Swansea Museum along with other items found under the floorboards: a clothing tag from a local shop called Griffith & Son and a tin of Ogden's tobacco which still contained enough to fill a pipe.

Letter to Santa written in 1911 (2nd image)
COMPARE TO THE LETTERS OF TODAY
Dublin resident John Byrne was installing central heating at his home in Oaklands Terrace, Terenure, when he found a scorched and folded piece of paper inside the fireplace in the front bedroom. It was a letter written by brother and sister A. and H. Howard on Christmas Eve 1911 and deposited in the chimney so that Santa would find it on his way into the house. “I want a baby doll and a waterproof with a hood and a pair of gloves and a toffee apple and a gold penny and a silver sixpence and a long toffee,” reads the letter, which also contains drawings and messages of “Good Luck.” According to the 1911 census, "A" stands for 7-year-old Alfred and "H" for 10-year-old Hannah, whose sister 13-year-old Lily did not participate. Byrne discovered the letter in 1994 and retains it as a souvenir of another time and place.

Christmas card circulating since 1950 (3rd image)
COMPARE TO THIS YEAR'S STRANGEST CHRISTMAS CARD
An 89-year-old retired schoolteacher, Acker Hanks remembers that the tradition began as a joke. He met Lee Kelley, who worked for the U.S. Forestry Service, when they both lived in Waverly, Texas. “We were next-door neighbors and became very good friends,” he explains. Hanks mailed Kelley a Christmas card in 1950, and Kelley mailed the card back to him in 1951. From that year on, the card changed places each year, a total of 64 times. The dates and places are listed on the card along with brief updates about their lives. Hanks married and remained in Texas, but the card traveled to Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and Washington, D.C., where Kelley was stationed, and then to Wisconsin, where he and his wife retired. After Kelley's death a dozen years ago, Hanks continued the card tradition with his widow - until now. The card is now at a standstill. It was returned undeliverable, which Hanks hopes means that Mrs. Kelley has moved to a nursing home. Hanks plans to frame the letter as a symbol of their bond and says, “It was just a close friendship. I always have looked forward to getting the card … I don't think it'll ever leave me now."

Santas...

2011-12-25T06:58:00.023-05:00

...parading in Portugal in 2008, riding motorcycles in Poland in 2007, warming up for a run in London in 2009, dashing in Liverpool in 2010, gathering for a pubcrawl in New York in 2011, running in Minnesota in 2007, at a convention on Long Island in 2011, assembling in Ireland in 2011, participating in a 5K race in Las Vegas in 2011, at an annual convention in Kansas in 2008, racing for charity in Glasgow in 2011, on skates and bikes in South Africa in 2010, assembling in Ireland in 2007, and skiing in California in 2009.
CLICK IMAGE FOR SOURCE

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Not-Santas

2011-12-24T07:18:00.021-05:00

Around this time of year, there is the perennial story of someone, neither a Santa Claus nor a chimney sweep, who gets stuck in a chimney and requires rescue. It wasn't hard to find some representative members - both adults and children - of this exclusive club:

Houston, Texas | Jan. 2004
Would-be burglar of a restaurant
"A police dog immediately spotted the legs dangling from the fireplace..."

Evansville, Indiana | Sept. 2007
Man trying to play a practical joke
"I was drunk, everybody do a stupid thing sometimes when they are drunk, ok?"

Jackson, Mississippi | Dec. 2009
Young boy attempting to retrieve backpack thrown by his brother (video here)
"I've seen a lot of things but this is not one of them."

Seattle, Washington | Feb. 2010
23-year-old trying to break into a house
"...he will be booked into jail upon his release from the hospital."

Sao Paulo, Brazil | Feb. 2010
Man breaking into local bar
"..tried to make a discreet entrance...but had to shout for help..."

New Canaan, Connecticut | June 2010
Adventurous 9-year-old girl
“This is very unusual. Particularly since she made it all the way from the top to the bottom without getting stuck. Thank God she went down feet-first so she wasn’t hanging upside down.”

Woodlake, California | Aug. 2010
11-year-old (1st image, video here) going headfirst into their new home when his family locked themselves out
"He was hollering. Mama please help me. I'm scared and crying."

Knoxville, Tennessee | Aug. 2010
22-year-old man entering occupied home with gasoline
"I didn't mean to hurt anyone. I believe I'm crazy."

Port Vila, Vanuatu | Oct. 2011
8-year-old going after something to drink from a neighbor's house
"Rescuers said the boy remained amazingly calm, but was still very thirsty. "

Lubbock, Texas | Nov. 2011
22-year-old man locked out of his own house and unwilling to pay for a locksmith
“Even if you would fit down the chimney flue, getting pass the damper assembly is — I can’t see anybody getting past that.”

Norcross, Georgia | Nov. 2011
16-year-old (3rd image) trying to break in
"Ah, I’m stupid.”

Labrador, Gold Coast, Australia | Dec. 2011
Autistic boy who fell in while on the roof of the family home
"Fire officers spent the next two hours trying to free the boy, eventually dismantling part of the chimney from inside the house to rescue him just moments before a heavy thunderstorm hit the area."

Stockton, California | Dec. 2011
18-year-old sneaking into his own house because he missed curfew (2nd and 4th images)
“He’s dirty and embarrassed and it remains to be seen what his parents will do with him.”

All of these soot-covered individuals were rescued. Not so for a 57-year-old man in Helsinki, Finland, in June 2010, as construction workers discovered...

Frankincense & myrrh

2011-12-23T06:26:00.022-05:00

"And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense and myrrh." (Matthew 2:11)

Frankincense
Frankincense is tapped from the Boswellia tree by slashing the bark (1st image) and allowing the exuded resins to bleed out and harden into what are known as "tears" (2nd image). The resin differs between species of the tree, which is so hardy it can grow out of solid rock, and even within species due to differences in soil and climate. The trees are native to the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa. The frankincense they produce is eaten raw in traditional Asian medicines, burned as incense, and distilled into essential oils for use in perfumes and aromatherapy.

Myrrh
Myrrh is tapped from the Commiphora tree (3rd image) by wounding the sapwood and allowing the resin to bleed out and become hard and glossy (4th image). The small, thorny trees grow in dry, stony soil and are native to Yemen, Somalia, and eastern Ethiopia. Myrrh is used as an ingredient in traditional Chinese and Ayurvedic (Indian) medicine, a salve or antiseptic in Western medicine, and an incense in Christian and other religious rituals.

The Network for Natural Gums and Resins in Africa estimates global demand for frankincense and myrrh at about 2,500 tons per year. Solid frankincense resin currently sells for up to £37.33 per kilo, according to the International Centre for Research in Dry Areas, with myrrh roughly twice as expensive and prices volatile. In fact, the supply of frankincense may be in jeopardy. A study out of Wageningen University in the Netherlands and published this week in the Journal of Applied Ecology finds that adult Boswellian trees are being attacked by longhorn beetles* and are not being replaced because cattle are eating all the seedlings. In addition, overtapping of the trees causes them to produce smaller fruits with seeds of lower weight and reduced vitality. Where they do grow, they are being systematically cut down or encroached upon by other species. Researcher Frans Bongers says, "Current management of Boswellia populations is clearly unsustainable. Our models show that within 50 years, populations of Boswellia will be decimated, and the declining populations mean frankincense production is doomed. This is a rather alarming message for the incense industry and conservation organizations." Myrrh may also be suffering from droughts, grazing, and political instability - making both plants vulnerable to extinction - but has not been the subject of such an eye-opening study.

*Note that although this site is called The Backyard Arthropod Project, the URL is http://somethingscrawlinginmyhair.com!

Rubbish!

2011-12-22T08:19:00.014-05:00

I take pride in sorting out the truth contained in yet another e-mail/story making the rounds.* According to the text, a well-known origami wiz lives in a converted garbage truck, and according to the illustrations that truck is neat as a pin inside and out. Well, 1st I confirmed that there is an origami master by the name of Won Park (4th and 5th images, watch him folding here). Next, I ran the keywords by Snopes and learned that the truck pictured is not a conversion from waste management duties, but in fact a commercially-available vehicle called the Terracross made by UNICAT. The model pictured (1st, 2nd, and 3rd images) - the EX63-HD / MAN TGA 6x6 - boasts the following specs and the photos circulating are promotional shots (see more here):

Extended cab with 2 seats + 2 jump seats
Engine performance 480 hp
12-speed transmission
All wheel drive
2 chamber fuel tanks, capacity 211 gallons
Satellite navigation system (GPS)
Back eye camera and searchlights
Wall thickness 2.36" w/polyurethane foam insulation
Double-sealed doors of fiberglass composite w/heavy-duty locks
Double-insulated thermal windows + acrylic glass skylights
Lifting roof with electric drive mechanism
Roof rack and crane for loading spare wheel
Hydraulic rack for 2 motorcycles
Seating unit with drawers converts to additional double bed
Office desk with chair
Double bed in lifting roof area
2 big wardrobes
Sanitary room w/shower, porcelain toilet, washstand, and wall cupboard
Kitchen countertop w/integrated sink + pull-out cutting board
Kitchen cabinet with locking drawers
3-flame stove with oven
Espresso maker
2 fridges with freezer
Large outside storage compartments w/lights
Aluminum exterior storage boxes
Music system + television w/DVD player
Integrated low-voltage lights above table, kitchen, hallway, shower, storage area + lifting roof
Reading lights in bed and seating area
190-gallon freeze-proof drinking water tanks
8.8-gallon hot water-heat exchanger
47-gallon freeze-proof waste water tank
58-gallon sewage holding tank
Diesel/electric-powered central heating
Radiators in living area and shower area
Antifrost system
Integrated air conditioner
Central vacuum cleaner
Overall dimensions: 28' 11"L x 8'1"W x 13' 1"H
Inner dimensions: 20' 3"L x 7' 9"W x 6' 7"H
2-year warranty
List price: $1,097,707

As to whether Mr. Park owns such a truck, I quote a comment claiming to be from the origamist himself:

Thu Dec 31, 2009, 1:15 PM Hello, Won Park here, There has been an email going around the internet and it says that I live in a Garbage Truck that has been converted in to an RV. I find it very funny because I live in Honolulu, Hawaii. I have a one bedroom Apt. I wish I could travel around in a RV and not pay rent. That would be fun. Won Park

I'm glad he has a sense of humor about it, since this piece of misinformation is unlikely ever to go away, and I am pleased to learn - if in fact it is true - that Won Park is a steampunk afficionado (6th image)!

*I received it from Chase back in September - with thanks!

Reindeer round-up

2011-12-21T08:21:00.010-05:00

"Maliya Suo is more than 90 years old, but she can still skin a squirrel. In her prime, she could shoot a pheasant in flight. She was once the greatest reindeer herder in her tribe," reads a report by Jonathan Kaiman in the Los Angeles Times. After a lifetime as a nomad in China's Inner Mongolia region, Suo (1st image) has resisted the government's effort to resettle her on the outskirts of Genhe. She and 2,000 fellow members of her Ewenki tribe were forcibly relocated to the riverside city in 2003. Their hunting rifles were confiscated and they had to leave their herd of reindeer (example, 2nd image) behind. Like hundreds of thousands of other nomadic herders, the Ewenki themselves have been herded. The Chinese government claims that the resettlement provides these minorities with new opportunities and promotes diversity by bringing them into mainstream society, in addition to protecting the environment from overgrazing. But critics claim that the moves cleared the land for mining and left the resettled nomads impoverished and further marginalized. Stubborn Suo soon moved back to the woods, commenting, "The city doesn't smell good." Several family members joined her, knowing that she would be unable to live by herself. They live in 4 large tents in a patch of forest in a mountain range by a stream of their own. No buildings, money, cars, power lines, or cell phone service - just birch trees, frozen ponds, and the smell of wood smoke. They survive by hunting game (moose, bear, wild boar, and squirrel) and have been reunited with their collectively-owned herd of 400 reindeer. The reindeer provide them with milk, but these Ewenki also supplement their diet with garlic and cabbage from the city, which they buy with money they make selling reindeer antlers.

IN OTHER REINDEER NEWS:

Rudolph and team fly with the help of their favorite food - magic mushrooms (video).
Dasher took 1st place in the first Reindeer Derby at Kempton Park Racecourse in Middlesex, Sunbury-on-Thames, England, and was awarded a trophy full of carrots (video).
Comet and Dancer escape from their trailer on the I-45 in Webster, Texas, on their way to visit schoolchildren (video).
Vixen and the others are very climate-friendly digesters when it comes to the release of methane gas (story).
Reindeer rented from Real Reindeer Ltd. have Scandinavian names, but are happy to use "stage names" when requested to stand in for Santa's team (video, gallery).
Blitzen and his kind have adapted to see and make sense of ultraviolet light (story).
In an undisclosed location, Prancer gets a little randy with a man's wife (video).
Cupid and Donder may be at risk after negative publicity generated by animal-rights activists in England causes a run on cans of reindeer pâté (story).