Frank Buck

In honor of the citizens and police officers of Carmichael, California, who became impromptu zebra wranglers (caution - language) yesterday, meet legendary wild animal collector Frank "Bring 'em back alive" Buck. Buck (1884-1950) began collecting birds and small animals as a child in Gainesville, Texas. Later he went to Brazil and made good money bringing exotic animals to New York, but lost it all in the stock market crash of 1929. His 1st book about his animal collecting adventures became a bestseller in 1930 - by which time he was the world’s leading supplier of wild animals - and was followed by more books, a stint at the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, and several TV documentaries and feature-length films. He furnished his "Jungleland" attraction - which featured rare birds, reptiles and other wild animals, a trained orangutan, a trio of performing elephants, 600 monkeys, and camel rides - for the 1933 Century of Progress in Chicago and the 1939 World's Fair in New York.

Frank Buck supplied animals to many of the world's zoos and circuses, and the Gainesville Zoo in his hometown is named in his honor. By his own account, he estimated the following captures over his lifetime:

• 120 Asiatic antelope and deer
• 100 gibbon apes
• 90 pythons
• 63 leopards
• 60 tigers
• 60 bears
• 52 orangutans
• 49 elephants
• 40 kangaroos and wallabies
• 40 wild goats and sheep
  
• 25 giant monitor lizards
• 20 hyenas
• 20 tapirs
• 18 African antelope
• 15 crocodiles
• 11 camels
• 10 king cobras
• 9 pigmy water buffalo
• 5 Indian rhinoceroses
• 5 Babirusa wild Asian swine
• 2 giraffes

In addition to this, he caught more than 500 different species of other mammals and more than 100,000 wild birds. In his day, there were no tranquilizer darts, so Buck devised traps and snares to catch animals without injuring them. He always made certain the captive animals were well-treated, by accompanying them aboard ship and by ensuring his clients had an impeccable reputation for animal care. After their divorce, his 2nd wife Nina C. Boardman, who used to accompany him on jungle expeditions, told reporters, "As long as I live, I don't want to see any animals wilder or bigger than a kitten."

Tai Shan to China

Yesterday I came across this story about a panda born this month at the Wolong Giant Panda Protection and Research Center in China (1st image) to the oldest mother (17, the equivalent of a human in her 60s) after the longest gestation (324 days, compared to an average of 120-150). I was reminded of Washington, D.C.'s Tai Shan and his transport to China in February 2010. Here's how his life unfolded...

Tai Shan was born on July 9th, 2005, to Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, who were leased for 10 years at a cost of $10 million from the Chinese government by the Smithsonian's National Zoo, with the clause that any offspring be sent to China sometime after the age of 2. On August 2nd, 2005, Tai Shan had his 1st medical exam (2nd image) and was found to have a length of 12" and a weight of 1.82lbs. His keeper Nicole Meese describes, "When he was really little, he was very squirmy. I held him for one of his first cub exams and he was wiggly the whole time. His eyes just opened up and his ears just started to open up, so he was beginning to explore his world. He was a little hard to handle at that point." The panda was less than a year old when my friend Ellen and I went to see him. In April 2007, Ambassador Zhou Wenzhong announced, "As an envoy of goodwill from the Chinese people and a symbol of friendly cooperation between China and the United States, Tai Shan will continue to bring more happiness and delight to the American people." But in 2010, Tai Shan's time had come. The media suggested China had ended "panda diplomacy" after President Barack Obama met with the Dalai Lama. China requested Tai Shan's return, and his forthcoming departure was announced in January 2009: "It's hard to say goodbye, but we are so thankful for the many memories and huge opportunities Tai has provided to the National Zoo." The zoo held a farewell celebration on January 30th. After a final day in Washington on February 3rd, 2010 (3rd image), Tai Shan joined a 3-year-old Atlanta-born female panda aboard a Federal Express plane (4th image) for the 14.5-hour non-stop flight from Dulles International Airport to Chengdu, China. On March 9th, 2010, Tai Shan made his much-celebrated debut (5th image) at the Ya'an Bifeng Gorge Breeding Base in Sichuan province, where he celebrated his 5th birthday, received corporate sponsorship from a Chinese automaker, and is being groomed to start his own family.

Arnolfini wedding portrait

The biggest misconception about this Renaissance painting is that the woman depicted is pregnant. She's not. The subject is thought to be a wedding portrait of Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini and his wife Giovanna Cenami, but the 2 weren't married until 13 years later and Giovanna in fact died childless. She appears in the painting dressed in the style of women at the time - a style often used to depict female virgin saints. And as a Tuscan cloth merchant, Arnolfini would have been knowledgeable about fashion. The wife's gesture with her left hand may be merely an indication of the couple's strong desire for an heir. The work was painted by Flemish artist Jan van Eyck (c. 1395-c. 1441) in 1434 and is considered one of the most complex paintings in Western art history. Here are some details about it:

The figures: Their placement suggests conventional 15th century views of gender roles. The man stands near the open window, symbolic of his role in the outside world, and looks directly out at the viewer. The woman stands near the bed, symbolic of her role as the caretaker of the house, and gazes obediently at her husband - though not looking down at the floor may indicate more equality than a lower-class woman would have. The hand-holding suggests a contract, like a marriage, and the man's raised hand suggests taking an oath - though it also symbolizes his commanding position of authority.

The clothing: Both subjects are richly dressed in enormously expensive outfits trimmed with fur despite the season. He wears a plaited straw summer hat and a short coat of silk velvet with a doublet of damask underneath. She is wearing a dress that has decorative dagging on the sleeves and a long train, with a blue underdress. The wearing of a headdress may indicate that the couple is already married. The slippers in the corner were a traditional gift from a husband to his bride and may also symbolize domestic tranquility.

The room: Although it contains a bed, this would have been typical of a reception room. The painting does not, however, show the usual fireplace. The elaborate bed-hangings, the carvings on the chair and bench, and the Oriental rug were signs of wealth, and the oranges on the table would have been a luxury. The carved finial on the bedpost may be St. Margaret, patron saint of pregnancy and childbirth, or St. Martha, patron saint of housewives. The brush hanging from the bedpost may suggest domestic care or chastity, and the brush and the rosary hanging on the wall could allude to the dual Christian injunctions to work and pray.

The chandelier: A probable pulley and chain mechanism to lower the elaborate brass chandelier for managing the candles has been omitted. The single candle may allude to the one used in traditional Flemish marriage rituals.

The mirror: The convex mirror is shown larger than such mirrors could actually be made at this time. The reflection shows 2 figures just inside the door the couple is facing; one of these is assumed to be the artist, but the pair may refer to the requirement that 2 people witness a wedding.

The window: A fruiting cherry tree outside indicates it is early summer.

The dog: The dog is an early form of the breed now known as the Brussels griffon. Also a traditional gift from husband to wife, the lap dog may signify loyalty, the desire for a child, or simply wealth.

But what to make of the gargoyle above the clasped hands? "The problem I sometimes feel is that the more you focus on the detail, the more the picture itself fades from view. You no longer see the whole image," says Renaissance scholar Evelyn Welch. Noting that the details of dress and setting may not have been a true likeness, but the way Arnolfini wanted to be seen, the narrator of a BBC documentary adds, "We have been tricked into thinking that Van Eyck is showing us reality, but Van Eyck's greatness doesn't lie in his ability to recreate reality, but in his ability as an illusionist. And the tricks of Van Eyck will always keep his most famous painting a mystery. The more we try to pull it apart, looking for answers, the more we realise that only faint echoes of the past remain."

Wherefore art thou, Dario?

In the catacombs and crypts of Sicily, of course! My friend Dario Piombino Mascali is an Italian anthropologist and bioarchaeologist who is coordinating the Sicily Mummy Project. He is pictured here nose to nose with one of the mummies in the Capuchin Monastery in Palermo (click for excellent slideshow by photojournalist Fabrizio Villa), where little Rosalia Lombardo lies. Funded by National Geographic, Dario discovered the embalming formula used to preserve her body so perfectly. Other more typical Sicilian mummies Dario has examined include R. Stancanelli (1868) and J.B. Racuja (1873) in Novara di Sicilia and several 18th c. mummies in a crypt in San Marco d'Alunzio. Mummification and exposure was a privileged form of burial in southern Italy and was achieved by placing the corpse in a colatoio, which translates as a colander, but refers to a room or fixture in which the remains were drained of fluids. Placement on a horizontal colatoio such as a wooden dessication rack (2nd image) favored mummification, while being propped up in a sitting colatoio like a dehydration niche (3rd image) favored skeletonization, so that skull and bones could be stored in ossuaries. Visitors report that the draining room (where the liquids of the bodies were naturally wicked away by the well-ventilated conditions) and the drying room (where they were cleaned and dressed) are both on the guided tour of the Capuchin crypt. National Geographic Magazine writes:

"No one knows exactly what started the mummification; probably by chance it was discovered that a body left in a crypt with a particular atmosphere of coolness and porous limestone would actually dry out rather than rot. Then a system was devised. The newly dead were laid in chambers, called strainers, on terra-cotta slats over drains, where their body fluids could seep away and the corpses slowly desiccate, like prosciutto. After eight months to a year, they'd be washed with vinegar, put back in their best clothes, and either placed in coffins or hung on the walls."

As I was writing this post, I was imagining the odor of the galleries. According to National Geographic, they are cool and dank and smell of sour, spiced dust and rotting...cloth.

Dalian

I recently declined an invitation to deliver a speech at the 1st Annual World Congress of Forensics that is to be held in October in Dalian, China. That is also the location where Gunther von Hagens prepares the plastinates for his BodyWorlds exhibitions, which have now been seen by 30 million people worldwide. As you may know, plastination involves dissecting a body to expose chosen anatomical features (3rd image), submerging it in a bath to replace the liquids with a polymer, posing it in the desired posture (2nd image), and gas-curing it under a plastic tent (3rd image). The private company that he founded in 2001 - von Hagens Dalian Plastination Ltd. - currently employs a staff of 250. Some of them are shown preparing individual organs (1st image) and Dr. von Hagens may be seen anatomizing a body (video here in German - caution) prior to plastinating, and displaying it.

Here's what I could find out about von Hagens' Dalian facility that the New York Times says "can only be described as a modern mummification factory." The sprawling campus is fenced and well-guarded. The buildings are unmarked and include a warehouse with stainless steel tanks containing animal and human corpses. There are several workshops in which medical school graduates prepare the bodies at an average salary of $200 to $400 a month. In some of these, the staff sits in assembly-line formation. In others, teams painstakingly dissect skinless corpses as they lay stretched out on tables. In the positioning room, dozens of workers place the body in what will be its final form and equip it with the props it needs to depict its designated activity. The large and sunny room is populated with plastinates in various states of readiness. With whole-body plastinates requiring a preparation time of 1,500 hours each, the staff is able to produce 30 per year. In spite of the efficiency, von Hagens assures, “Every specimen is an anatomical treasure.”

Harar hyenas

Hyenas walk the streets of Harar, Ethiopia - and the people are not afraid. A man named Youseff Mume Saleh (2nd image) draws an international crowd each night feeding hyenas scraps of goat, donkey, or camel meat. The tips from the tourists help feed his family of 9, but he does not do it for the money, and supposedly neither does the other "Hyena Man" Salamo Fantan (3rd image). Saleh has given the animals names - "Funyamure" and "Tukwondilli" - and knows their personalities. Journalist Kate Linchicum recently describes, "Saleh leaps around the yard flinging scraps into waiting mouths. He uses his body to block the aggressive hyenas so those that have not yet eaten can get their share. He teases the shy ones, forcing them to come close and pull the meat from his mouth. When he’s out of meat, the spectators shove off and the hyena man shoos the animals into the shadows to finish off their meal. A call rings out from the nearby mosque, beckoning the faithful to evening prayer. Then all that is heard is the ring of cicadas and the crunch of bones."

Hyenas are villains in most Ethiopean villages, including Maalka Raafu, where the humans and the animals have a deadly antagonistic relationship. In contrast, even the children of Harar are unafraid of the beasts, comparing them to dogs and cats. In exchange for the nightly feedings, the Harar hyenas do not attack the residents or their livestock, and fend off other packs of hyenas. "One must know them and understand them, then nothing will happen." says the Hyena Man. The tradition is said to have begun 200 years ago during a famine, when the hyenas were discouraged from marauding the city and eating its inhabitants by offering them porridge. Later, city leaders made holes in the surrounding gates to allow the hyenas access to the community's garbage. In the 1960s, a farmer began to give them food to keep them away from his livestock. Now during the annual Muslim festival of Ashura, the city celebrates the truce negotiated so many years ago. Offerings of porridge and butter are set out for the hyenas at Harar's many shrines. As we do on Groundhog Day, the people see the animals' reaction as predicting the new year. Clearing their plates, signifies a coming drought; spurning the food indicates danger; and eating most, but not all, of the food suggests a prosperous year. Saleh plans to train his son Abbas to carry on the tradition, which will ensure the continued safety of his family - and the town.

Sammy

I have done 2 posts about author and professor Sam Pickering. In the 1st, I remarked that he was my favorite professor at the University of Connecticut, and in the 2nd I included an excerpt from an unpublished essay he wrote about his visit to Karrakatta Cemetery in Perth, Western Australia. In this 3^rd post, I bring to your attention his 21^st book, A Comfortable Boy: A Memoir. Of the book he writes, “My readers are likely to be old and content, their muscles corpses of themselves, their thinking realistic, beyond believing in reformation by sentence. Still, for readers intent on nosing up lessons, the book is filled with little, forgettable accounts of decency and love, stories that nudge the funny bone and provoke soft smiles. Perhaps a few readers will close this book and scrolling back through their years discover the stuff of their happiness, material that will make them appreciate the present more.” It’s a gentle book full of strong characters that does make you conjure up remembrances of your own. It provoked in me the memory – undocumented in any photo album – of my Dad icing up the horn of the life-sized rhinoceros he, my sister, and I built in the front yard of my childhood home after a heavy snow. As an only child growing up in the South, Sam liked nothing better than to rummage in his relatives’ attics, and in this memoir relays the fruits of some of those labors: the quirky content of birthday cards and saved newspaper clippings, in addition to letters shared between family members who fought on both sides of the Civil War. My favorite story in the book follows the description of young Sammy’s voracious reading habits. “After reading Treasure Island,” he writes, “I roamed landlocked woods hoping to find gold, not pieces of eight in a dead man’s chest, but an abandoned car, money hidden in a suitcase under the front seat, or if not money, a body, preferably a skeleton, locked in the trunk. Forty years later when I found a Volvo in woods near our house in Nova Scotia, moss flaring up over the sides and planters of ferns on the roof and atop the trunk, I scattered forty ‘loonies,’ brassy dollar coins, throughout the car. The next day I led the children on a salamander expedition during which we just happened to discover the car and its golden treasure. A man does not become the books he read, but books can certainly contribute to the fun of being a parent.” With only a few such insights into the man, the bulk of the book is about the physical and metaphorical wanderings of the boy. And his comfort rubs off on the reader.

Follow-ups

St. Paul stares back 8/4/10 Relics of St. John the Baptist have been found in Bulgaria.

Historic family farms 8/3/10 New friend and follower Sue was surprised to read this post because she lived in New Hampshire for 25 years and shopped at Tuttle's Red Barn often!

A second look at Wallace's cabinet 7/28/10 My sister in Seattle reminds me that they have no lightning bugs out there, because they never made it over the Rocky Mountains.

Mummy family 7/27/10 The mummified body of a man who went missing years ago is found beneath a California house. Reader Chase pointed out this story of a mummified baby found in a storage unit.

Tombstoning 7/26/10 The daredevil stunts are practiced by monkeys in Thailand. Monkeys used trees to catapult out of a Japanese laboratory.

Ripley's annual 7/24/10 Ripley's is trying to find the skeleton of a sperm whale they buried 2 decades ago.

Science center weddings 7/23/10 Louisville-based photojournalist Nina Greipel points out that she took the 3rd photograph used to illustrate this post.

Elmbalming Elvis 7/22/10 The tools used to embalm Elvis were withdrawn from auction.

Free micrography! 7/18/10 Fun flythroughs of fruits and vegetables that have been undergone MRI.

The Fine Art of Poisoning 7/17/10 Care to drink beer out of a dead animal?

Churchill's choppers 7/16/10 The prime minister's dentures sold for £15,200.

Oil and turtles 6/30/10 BP paid turtle watchers to make sure the animals weren't harmed during clean-up operations.

White elephants 6/29/10 Cameroon farmers are skeptical of deterring elephants with pepper spray. A Liberian elephant went on a rampage, killing a logging worker. A baby elephant in an Ohio zoo is caught on video attacking its keeper.

Antique chocolates 6/10/10 How about some 138-year-old cake? By the way, an unknown trader purchased all the cocoa beans on the European market in July...

Swimming the English Channel 6/2/10 Woman beats record for slowest crossing. Man abandons attempt at triple crossing.

Crafty bees 5/14/10 A swarm of bees in Lincolnshire, U.K., "turned the sky black." Michigan firefighters use 750 gallons of water to disperse overly aggressive bees.

Vultures 5/4/09 A Michigan motorcyclist is struck and killed by a turkey buzzard.

Pet food industry 4/15/10 A Florida food bank mistakenly distributes canned dog food.

Savants and synesthetes 4/14/10 An 8-year-old British boy who paints masterpieces.

Corpses in strange places 4/6/10 Dead body found in a car in Seattle that was ticketed for a parking violation. Belgium considers flushing its dead down the drain. A woman abandons her mother's body at a Georgia crematory.

Dwarfs on display 3/26/10 Violent dwarfs in Nevada. Reader Thorn points out the the descendants of Chang and Eng Bunker have gathered for their annual reunion.

Poularde de bresse en vessie 3/18/10 At the other extreme from fine dining, Japan debuts the 1st banana vending machine.

Monkeys in prose and proverb 3/9/10 A Chinese man regrets cracking eggs and killing chickens in front of his pet monkey.

Kopi 3/3/10 This coffee has been approved for Muslims by Indonesia's top Islamic body.

Crittercam 2/16/10 Video from the 1st squid-cam.

Ironic deaths 2/4/10 Two Oregon brothers die in a head-on collision with each other. A Pennsylvania bus driver is killed in a crash with a bus being driven by her husband. A Texas trucker dies while trying to stage a phony accident. An Italian wedding photographer is shot to death after asking bride and groom to pose with rifles.

Machu Picchu 1/27/10 A slideshow about Machu Picchu's history.

Ancient Egyptian finds 1/20/10 Father-son tombs have been discovered in Sakkara. A temple dating from the reign of Rameses the Great has been found in the Valley of the Kings.

Smilodon 12/21/09 The fossil of a saber-tooth tiger has been found in Australia for the 1st time.

Nero's dining room 12/19/09 Historians believe they have located the site of King Arthur's round table.

Alligator urban legends 11/14/09 Video of an alligator feeding frenzy in the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia. A rare American crocodile gobbled up a Florida man's dog. Alligators are being brought in to eat the fish stranded in a drained lake bed in Arizona.

Circus animals on the lam 11/13/09 A penguin is recovered on the street after being snatched from the zoo in Dublin. Two lemurs that escaped from a Salzburg zoo are captured in a hotel bar. A man has been sentenced for stealing a tarantula from a Maryland library. When the truck hauling them to the slaughterhouse overturned, 12 Michigan cows made a break for it. Australian media chase an escaped macaw. An escaped pet tiger is still on the loose in South Africa.

Humpback whales 11/10/09 A cruise ship fatally struck a humpback in Alaska. Grey whales beg for attention from Mexican tourists. You probably heard about the whale that jumped on a sailboat off South Africa. An employee at an Arizona safari park (which I've been to) has a close call with a tiger, but diverts its attention with an inflatable killer whale. A woman swimming in Florida was lifted up by a large, dark animal that may have been a whale - or a shark.

Manikins 11/6/09 A woman has designed a low-tech device called "MamaNatalie" to train birth attendants.

Engineering feats 11/1/09 Passengers taking the Eurotunnel to France are forgotten and sent back to England.

Docking cow tails 10/27/09 Automatic "cow wash" increases milk production. A 2-headed calf born in Egypt is expected to survive. A dairy cow in Somerset, U.K., has given birth to triplets of different breeds. A lamb born in China with only 2 legs (1st image) has been spared slaughter. But a rampaging pregnant cow at the California State Fair has to be put down. Barcelona bans bullfighting.

Birds in fable and fact 10/22/09 German scientists have determined that birds navigate by visualizing the earth's magnetic field with their right eye. Everyone is watching Molly the owl nest and lay eggs. A kookaburra and a duckling are friends. A hummingbird spotted in Ireland is actually a moth.

The Mary Rose 10/15/09 An old ship has been uncovered on a Rhode Island beach. After 27-year search, WWII bomber found in Adriatic Sea.

Golf course oddities 10/14/09 An increase in snakebites among Swedish golfers.

Gossamer 9/27/09 Britain may be facing a spider invasion.

The biting off of fingers 9/5/09 A man in Ottawa bit (but did not detach) a police officer's thumb. A man in Boise bit off his roommate's nose, which could not be reattached. A Florida man bit off his girlfriend's finger, which was reattached.

More mystery 8/23/09 Lawyers have just opened a cache of unpublished writings by Franz Kafka.

Hottentot Venus 7/27/09 The body of an aboriginal warrior has finally been reunited and laid to rest in Australia.

Steampunk design 7/21/09 A gallery of steampunk tattoos (2nd image). A virtual tour of a steampunk home in Sharon, Massachusetts.

Humboldt squid 7/17/09 Hundreds of dead penguins are washing up on the beaches of Brazil. A giant squid washed up on a New Zealand beach.

Hazards of hail 6/16/09 South Dakota breaks the record for the largest hailstone to fall in the U.S.

Oldtimer 6/6/09 A supposed 130-year-old woman in Tbilisi, Georgia, celebrates her birthday. In Malaysia, a 108-year-old woman reunites with her 38-year-old spouse. The 100-year-old actress from the film Titanic is honored. When Tokyo officials sought out their oldest citizen to honor him on his 111th birthday, they found him mummified in his bed - he had died 30 years ago; they then sought out the oldest woman in the city and found that she had disappeared decades before. Britain's oldest person has died just short of her 112th birthday.

Prosimians 4/25/09 The reclusive Horton Plains slender loris has been photographed for the 1st time.

Bears in the news 4/24/09 You probably heard about the bear in Colorado that took a Toyota for a short joyride earlier this month, but you may not have seen what the inside of the car looked like afterward! A rancher in New Mexico punched a bear to save a goat. The Alaska police warn against using tasers on bears. A real bear in New Hampshire broke into a house and stole a teddy bear. Residents and authorities in Canada have been unsuccessfully trying to catch a bear that has a jar stuck on its head.

Flightless birds 4/12/09 Kiwi does rehab on the treadmill.

Footprints 2/28/09 A fossil foot bone reveals human presence in the Philippines 20,000 years earlier than thought.

Megafishes 2/15/09 Dozens of beachgoers in San Diego were the victims of stingrays this season. Scientists claim fish "talk" to each other.

Polydactyly 2/3/09 A Chinese boy has 24 fingers and toes.

Animal accidents 1/16/09 Dead badger prevents striping of U.K. road.

Stand By Me 1/13/09 Brownsville, Oregon, celebrates the 25th anniversary of the movie, much of which was filmed in the town.

Auroras 12/23/08 Rare sightings of the Northern Lights in places like Scotland due to a recent solar flare.

First U.S. face transplant! 12/17/08 French surgeons carry out a full-face transplant. Full-face transplant in Spain. A British nurse is the 1st person to have had all her major organs transplanted.

Zebras 12/1/08 A zedonk has been born at a Georgia wildlife preserve. A donkey in France is rarer than a white rhino.

Myrtle Corbin and Hannah Kersey 11/26/08 A Utah woman pregnant in each of her 2 uteruses.

Octopus with attitude 11/26/08 Antarctic octopuses have venom that works at subzero temperatures. Germany rejects Spain's bid to buy the octopus that famously predicted the outcome of the World Cup. You, too, can look like an octopus.

Facial reconstruction 11/22/08 Scientists have recreated a woman's appearance from her Ice Age skeleton.

Albinos 11/18/08 An albino raccoon is caught in Tennessee. Meanwhile, a raccoon with more typical coloration has terrorized an Illinois family. And a baby skunk adopted by an Iowa family turns out to have rabies.

Amputation 10/19/08 In amputation news, an amputee protester at the G20 had a negative experience with the Toronto police. Also, in contrast to the many who undergo limb-lengthening surgery for cosmetic reasons, a British boy does so to help restore a withered leg. An Alabama teen breaks vow never to attend another camp after her prosthetic leg is stolen as a prank. A New Mexico man was found naked on the highway after setting his prosthetic leg on fire with his crack pipe.

Franklin Expedition 10/13/08 Canadian archaeologists are searching for Franklin's ships.

Nadar and the Paris Catacombs 9/28/08 Follower Jana recommends this write-up about the adventures of cataphiles.

Solar salamander

An amazing discovery has been made by Ryan Kerney, a postdoctoral researcher in the Biology Department at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. While looking closely at a clutch of spotted salamander (Ambystoma maculatum) embryos (1st image), he noticed that their bright green color comes from within the embryos themselves, as well as from the jelly capsule that encases them. This viridescence is caused by the single-celled alga Oophila amblystomatis, which has long been known to enjoy symbiosis with the spotted salamander (2nd image). But this mutually beneficial relationship was believed to occur in the water, where the salamander lays its eggs, not within the eggs themselves. At a conference in Uruguay last month, Kerney reported that these algae are located inside cells all over the spotted salamander's body, and that it may be directly providing the products of photosynthesis — oxygen and carbohydrate — to the salamander cells that encapsulate them.

This unprecedented finding between a vertebrate and a photosynthetic organism requires that the salamander embryos shut off their immune system, or that the algae find a way around it. Kearney is now trying to find out how the algae enters the salamander cells, and has so far discovered its presence in the oviducts of adult female spotted salamanders, where the embryo-encompassing jelly sacs form, which points to the possibility that the algae are passed from mother to the offspring's jelly sacs during reproduction. A key factor may be the way self-recognition is learned by salamander cells, which retain pluripotency (the ability to divide and change into other cell types) into adulthood - which is what allows the animal to regrow its limbs.

St. Paul stares back

Beneath an ugly office building (photo here) lies a Roman time capsule. The catacombs of St. Tecla contain a tiny basilica where early Christians would celebrate Mass, corridors lined with niches for simple burials, and cubicles where the families of the wealthy were interred. One of these last is the frescoed tomb of a noblewoman now known as the "Cubicle of the Apostles," which has just been restored and represents some of the earliest evidence of devotion to the Apostles in early Christianity.

Outside, not far from the catacombs, is the Basilica of St. Paul's Outside the Walls, where the bones of the apostle are entombed. Inside the catacombs are the earliest known images of Saints Paul, Peter, Andrew, and John - icons 50cm in diameter dating to the 4th c. St Paul's wrinkled and elongated forehead, balding head, and pointy beard (1st image), indicate that these portraits may have set the standard for later artists' depictions.

During the 2-year restoration, technicians used a laser as an "optical scalpel" to detach a thick patina of powdery calcium carbonate caused by extreme humidity and lack of air circulation (3rd image). The images that were blurry and opaque were revealed with stunning clarity. "As far as paintings inside catacombs go, we are used to very faint paintings, usually white, with few colors. In the case of the St Tecla catacombs, the great surprise was the extraordinary colors. The more we went forward, the more surprises we found," said Barbara Mazzei, who headed the project. She explains that the white crust of the calcium carbonate was in some places 4-5cm thick when they began their work in 2008, but they knew from 19th c. watercolors and diary entries that there were paintings underneath.

The restored paintings were shown off to journalists in June by Fabrizio Bisconti (2nd image), who says they show "the genesis, the seeds of Christian iconography." Bisconti is the superintendent of the catacombs for the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology, and notes that the Vatican has no plans to open up these catacombs to the public.

Historic family farms

In a recent article about the sale of the oldest continuously-operated family-owned farm in the U.S. being put up for sale, there was mention of a competing claim (the oldest family-owned business in North America) by a plantation. Let's compare histories:

Tuttle Family Farm, Dover, New Hampshire, est. 1635

John Tuttle's ship from England wrecked off the Maine coast, so he used a small land grant from King Charles I to start a farm nearby in 1632. The farm was passed down from father to son, with the 6th-generation represented by Joseph Tuttle (1st image). William Penn Tuttle (9th generation), increased the original 20-acre parcel to about 200 acres, and began a thriving wholesale business. Hugh Tuttle (10th generation), who was profiled in 1971 by Life magazine (5th image, hauling produce to his roadside store, known as Tuttle's Red Barn) as the last of a dying breed, developed irrigation ponds. Current owners, Will Tuttle (2nd image) and his sister Lucy, have run the farm for the last 40 years after changing its business model, but have discouraged their children from becoming the 12th generation because of the difficulty - physical and financial - of keeping the family farm in business. Will Tuttle says he has no regrets about the end of a legacy. "I'm not a museum curator, I'm a farmer."

Shirley Plantation, Charles City, Virginia, est. 1613
Shirley Plantation was also established through a grant from the Crown, only 6 years after the establishment of Jamestown, the 1st permanent English settlement in the American colonies. It was in 1638 that the family succession began when a 450-acre portion of the land was granted to Edward Hill. It passed from him to Edward Hill II, then III, then IV, who left no heirs. The plantation reverted to Eward Hill III's youngest daughter, whose husband John Carter built the "Great House" (3rd image, as it appeared after the Civil War, and 4th image, as it looks today). The house has been occupied by 8 generations of the Hill Carter family since 1738, and the working plantation is currently owned, operated, and lived in by direct descendants of Edward Hill I. Shirley Plantation was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1971 and is open for tours.

It seems like a tie that will end with the transfer of the $3.35 million Tuttle property to new owners...

A tale of two yachts

Juxtaposed here for the purpose of comparison are the stories of 2 yachts, the Nueva Vida owned by Tom Crafton (1st image, text in purple) and the Summerwind owned by Jeff Greene (2nd image, text in green).

The success of Anchorage residents Tom Crafton, a 50-year-old family psychologist, and his wife Kathleen, an ICU nurse, left them wanting. They decided to liquidate their assets and use the proceeds to buy a yacht that could cross the ocean. They chose a sturdy 42.7' yacht with twin masts built in Taiwan in 1978 and registered in the United States.

The Summerwind is a 3-story, 145' luxury yacht built in Hong Kong in 1995 and owned by senate candidate* and Palm Beach real estate mogul, billionaire Jeff Greene. Greene considered it a steal at $6 million when he purchased it in 2002, then registered it in the Marshall Islands to avoid paying taxes on it.

The Craftons set out on a 7-year journey with their 3 kids: Jena, 22, Kalena, 18, and Ben, 15. "Almost at once, an instinctive choreography emerged, allowing 5 people to colonize a space not much larger than a minivan."

Greene uses the Summerwind to entertain family and celebrities. Filled with massive suites, lavish bathrooms, and an array of communication systems, the yacht is considered a "floating mansion." With 1 master cabin, 2 double cabins, 2 single cabins, and 5 crew cabins, it can accommodate up to 14 overnight guests. "We've spent almost five months of the year living on the yacht. This is really our second home," says Greene.

Since leaving the dock in Severna Park, Maryland, in 2003, the Crafton Family has logged 30,000 miles circumnavigating the globe, including a few days in Papua New Guinea, and 18 months in New Zealand. They sailed the Americas, crossed the Panama Canal, and cruised for months between Pacific Islands. Their favorite port of call was Vanuatu, where the people owned the least and smiled the most: "They are the happiest people in the world. It reinforced everything we believed about putting time with the family over this blind pursuit of material things."

When the 9-man crew of Greene's yacht dropped anchor off the coast of Belize in 2005, ignoring the frantic warnings of the local residents, they destroyed a 50' x 200' area of a coral reef system officially recognized by the United Nations as one of the world's most magnificent and irreplaceable treasures. Melanie McField, a marine scientist with the Smithsonian Institution who surveyed the reef afterward, says, "It was bad. There was a lot of damage." Despite the extensive publicity, eyewitness accounts, and statements made by his own representatives, Greene's campaign maintains, "career politicians are attacking him with ridiculous stories about something that didn't even happen 5 years ago on a boat he wasn't even on."

The Craftons lived simply aboard their yacht, living on fish and canned goods at sea and buying provisions at the local markets when they were docked. They even got rid of their small refrigerator to avoid having to run the engine just to keep beer cool.

Greene spends $100,000 to fill up the tank, which holds 22,721 gallons of diesel fuel and burns about 50 of those an hour to maintain its cruising speed of 16 knots.

All 5 Craftons are pleased with their decision and plan to remain living on the yacht in the U.S. "I would never trade the time we had to raise our kids out there, seeing the world through their eyes, being together 24/7," she says. "But now it's time for them to come back and learn more about their own country. They need to start their own lives," says Kathleen. "And plus, we're flat broke," she adds with a laugh.

Greene will likely avoid returning to Belize, where he faces a $1.87 million fine for the environmental damage caused by the operation of the Summerwind.

*Jeff Greene is a democrat - as am I, but what follows is an act I would consider egregious by a member of either party.

Sources: Washington Post, St. Petersburg Times, Forbes.com, Superyachttimes.com, Boatinfoworld.com.

Roman vandalism

Graffito, n. Antiq. and Art. A drawing or writing scratched on a wall or other surface; a scribbling on an ancient wall, as those at Pompeii and Rome. orig. U.S. In pl. with sing. concord. Words or images marked (illegally) in a public place, esp. using aerosol paint. [It. graffito, f. graffio a scratch.] - excerpted from the Oxford English Dictionary

The word (we use the plural) has its origins in Rome and it is that ancient city that is having a modern problem with graffiti and vandalism, according to an AP report last week. The often drunken vandals regularly uproot or break off the noses of statues in parks on 2 of Rome's 7 hills - Pincian and Janiculum, have twice thrown dye into the Trevi Fountain, and most recently scrawled an anti-pope message on the Scala Santa. Monuments like these are around every corner, making Rome a tourist destination but also making monitoring of the entire city impossible - especially when it takes a mere 30 seconds to do damage to a monument that costs $2,000 to repair. Daniel Berger, an art consultant with Italy's Culture Ministry, says, "You'd need an army of 20 million people to be there every day, every night. You have to somehow protect them by encouraging people to understand that it's their heritage, and that it's the Western European culture."

To combat the vandalism, the Italian government has increased patrols by uniformed and plainclothes police officers, and is installing surveillance cameras. "[M]uch of the spray-painted graffiti seen on the noble marble edifices of old Rome may indeed be rooted in anarchistic reaction to old values and centuries of government hypocrisy by youths living in slum tower-blocks on the outskirts of Rome," writes an English resident, who more squarely places the blame at the feet of spoiled MTV-watching middle class Italian youth. For the many connoisseurs of street art, vandalism is destruction, but graffiti is culture.