There are many forms of dignity
within the animal world. Some shared by humans and the other animals.
This picture is purported to be the
only one of Crazy Horse, I cannot verify that so you will have to do your own
research to determine the authenticity.
“He was an uncommonly handsome man.
While not the equal of Gall in magnificence and imposing stature, he was
physically perfect, an Apollo in symmetry.”
Furthermore he was a true type of
Indian refinement and grace. He was modest and courteous as Chief Joseph; the
difference is that he was a born warrior, while Joseph was not. However, he was
a gentle warrior, a true brave, who stood for the highest ideal of the Sioux.
Notwithstanding all that biased historians have said of him, it is only fair to
judge a man by the estimate of his own people rather than that of his enemies.
http://indians.org/indigenous-peoples-literature/crazy-horse-oglala.html
This is what got me started on my
interest in The First Nations People. Left on my bed when I was about 10 by my
mother. She never asked about it or any other of the many books that came to my
bed.
One of the things that attracted me
so to The First Nations was (is) their perspective on nature. As I moved toward
the sciences, especially the more I studied biology and ecology, the more I respected and
appreciated their wisdom in relating to the earth and nature. So, here’s some
cool nature stuff.
This is what it looked like down at
the creek behind the house where I was a kid and spent hours enjoying the quiet and the
critters around me.
Can’t get enough of these critters….so
close to us!
A massive raptor called the harpy
eagle—the national bird of Panama—has maintained a stronghold in wild terrain
of the Darién rainforest.
https://www.facebook.com/biographic.magazine/photos/a.1168248919861716/2216491678370763/?type=3&theater
A picture taken by my good friend
and fellow creek dweller, Brandy Johnson.
This is the jelly fish called down here, the agua mala. You don’t
want to run into here in Baja. Not large, half dollar size, but oh what a
sting.
The spirits of nature are of course
always there too.
The wonderful thing about science is
that it is always questioning, searching, discovering, explaining. Here’s just
a short list of some of the stuff going on today.
Massive Triple Star System Creates this Bizarre Swirling Pinwheel of Dust. And it Could be the Site of a Gamma Ray Burst
When stars reach the end of their lifespan, many undergo gravitational collapse and explode into a supernova, In some cases, they collapse to become black holes and release a tremendous amount of energy in a short amount of time. These are what is known as gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), and they are one of the most powerful events in the known Universe.Recently, an international team of astronomers was able to capture an image of a newly-discovered triple star system surrounded by a “pinwheel” of dust. This system, nicknamed “Apep”, is located roughly 8,000 light years from Earth and destined to become a long-duration GRB. In addition, it is the first of its kind to be discovered in our galaxy.
https://www.universetoday.com/140619/massive-triple-star-system-creates-this-bizarre-swirling-pinwheel-of-dust-and-it-could-be-the-site-of-a-gamma-ray-burst/
USC scientists have demonstrated a theoretical method to enhance the performance of quantum computers, an important step to scale a technology with potential to solve some of society's biggest challenges.
USC scientists have demonstrated a theoretical method to enhance the performance of quantum computers, an important step to scale a technology with potential to solve some of society's biggest challenges.
A microbe's membrane helps it survive extreme environments
Source:
Stanford's School of Earth, Energy
& Environmental Sciences
Summary:
Within harsh environments like hot
springs, volcanic craters and deep-sea hydrothermal vents -- uninhabitable by
most
life forms -- microscopic organisms
are thriving. How? It's all in how they wrap themselves.
The Large Hadron Collider has been
Shut Down, and Will Stay Down for Two Years While they Perform Major Upgrades.
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is getting a big
boost to its performance. Unfortunately, for fans of ground-breaking physics,
the whole thing has to be shut down for two years while the work is done. But
once it’s back up and running, its enhanced capabilities will make it even more
powerful.The essence of the Large Hadron Collider is to accelerate particles and then direct them to collide with each other in chambers. Cameras and detectors are trained on these collisions, and the results are monitored in minute detail. It’s all about discovering new particles and new reactions between particles, and watching how particles decay.
It’s the Solar System’s Most Distant Object. Astronomers Named It Farout.
Orbiting
11 billion miles from the sun, this tiny world offers additional clues in the
search for the proposed Planet Nine.
Ah, the microbial world. Where I
thought my destiny lay in research.
It has been discovered that there is
a family of bacteria-infecting viruses (a subgroup of a kind called
bacteriophages, or just “phages”) that eavesdrop on their hosts’ routine
molecular communications with other bacteria.
That means VP882’s kill trigger
could be easily manipulated to target any bacteria, Bassler says—opening the
possibility that the virus could be engineered into an ideal killing machine
for dangerous pathogens.
And more color to our human story:
DNA of world's oldest natural mummy unlocks secrets of Ice Age tribes in the Americas
Date:
November
8, 2018
Source:
St
John's College, University of Cambridge
Summary:
A wide
ranging international study that genetically analyzed the DNA of a series of
famous and controversial ancient remains across North and South America has
discovered that the Spirit Cave remains -- the world's oldest natural mummy -
was a Native American.
They were also able to dismiss a longstanding theory that a group called Paleoamericans existed in North America before Native Americans.
They were also able to dismiss a longstanding theory that a group called Paleoamericans existed in North America before Native Americans.
BURGOS, SPAIN—Science News reports that stone tools unearthed in Algeria amid
butchered animal bones suggest the evolution of human ancestors was not limited
to East Africa.
Mohamed Sahnouni of Spain’s National
Research Center for Human Evolution and his colleagues say meat-chopping tools
found in North Africa were made about 2.4 million years ago, or about 200,000
years more recently than the oldest known tools in East Africa. The scientists
think the tools could have been crafted by descendants of East African
toolmakers who migrated into North Africa, or they may have been created
independently. The animal bones came from savanna-dwellers such as elephants, horses,
rhinoceroses, antelopes, and crocodiles that may have been hunted or scavenged
from carnovores’ fresh kill sites, Sahnouni said. No hominin remains were found
with the tools, so the researchers are not sure who made them. To read about
early remains of modern humans discovered in Morocco, go to “Homo sapiens, Earlier Still.”
UPDATED: An eight-year-old
Swedish-American girl came across an exciting find swimming at her local lake,
when she pulled an ancient sword from its depths.
"It's not every day
that one steps on a sword in the lake!" Mikael Nordström from Jönköpings
Läns Museum said when explaining the significance of the find.
But that's exactly what
happened to Saga Vanecek, who found the relic at the Vidöstern lake in Tånnö,
Småland earlier this summer.
JENA,
GERMANY—Live
Science reports that stone hand axes similar to those made by human
ancestors some 1.5 million years ago in Africa have been recovered in Saudi
Arabia and dated to as recently as 190,000 years ago.
It
is unclear who made the tools at the site, which is known as Saffaqah.
“However, hominins that have been found with Acheulean tools include Homo erectus, who was
probably a direct ancestor of humans,” explained Eleanor Scerri of the Max
Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. The study suggests the
hominins who crafted the tools, and traveled throughout the region on its
waterways, may have encountered modern humans, who are thought to have entered
the Arabian Peninsula at about that time. “Although the site of Saffaqah was
not a desert when these Acheulean hominins were there, it was probably still
quite an arid environment,” Scerri added. For more on early stone tools, go
to “The First
Spears.”
https://www.archaeology.org/issues/81-1303/trenches/523-south-africa-earliest-spearsA new technique for sequencing ancient DNA has allowed a multinational research team to reconstruct the genome of a person who lived in Siberia’s Denisova Cave between 30,000 and 82,000 years ago—with the same level of accuracy as genomes from modern people.
NOVOSIBIRSK,
RUSSIA—According to a report in The
Siberian Times, archaeologists have found a 50,000-year-old piece of
worked woolly mammoth tusk in the southern gallery of Denisova Cave. Alexander
Fedorchenko of the Novosibirsk Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography
suggests the curved ivory object is a fragment of an ornament whose large size
indicates it was worn by a Denisovan man. A cord would have been threaded
through holes in either end of the piece and then tied around the wearer's head
in order to keep his hair out of his eyes. There is evident wear and tear on
the artifact, which was eventually discarded. Such ivory “tiaras,” as they are
called, have been found in other parts of Siberia, but those decorated items
were created between 20,000 and 28,000 years ago by modern humans. The
Densiovan tiara suggests the tradition could be older than previously thought.
For more, go to “Denisovan
DNA.
https://www.archaeology.org/issues/60-1301/trenches/311-hominin-neanderthals-humans-siberiaOne more animal picture. Too special to wait for next blog.
