There are two types of sumac

This is one of the most interesting things I've found today and it was worth a quick browse (only fast-forwarded a couple times).  Despite having grown up around sumac since my Minnesota childhood, I never learned (or have forgotten) that there is a world of difference between "poison sumac" and "staghorn sumac."  

Three-minute drum solo on a bodhrán

"The Maguires at the launch of their debut album, Little Giants and Other Oxymorons at Temple Bar Tradfest in January 2017.  This clip features a bodhrán solo from Seán Maguire, just 11 years of age at the time, followed by a set of reels from the band."

The instrument was totally new to me. Here are some excerpts from the Wikipedia entry:

Composer Seán Ó Riada declared the bodhrán to be the native drum of the ancient Celts (as did bodhrán maker Paraic McNeela), suggesting that it was possibly used originally for winnowing or wool dying, with a musical history that predated Christianity, native to southwest Ireland... However, according to musician Ronan Nolan, former editor of Irish Music magazine, the bodhrán evolved in the mid-19th century from the tambourine, which can be heard on some Irish music recordings dating back to the 1920s....

The drum is struck either with the bare hand or with a lathe-turned piece of wood called a bone, tipper, beater, stick or cipín.  Tippers were originally fashioned from a double-ended knuckle bone, but are now commonly made from ash, holly, or hickory wood...

...a pitch-varying technique that enabled the bodhrán player to closely follow the cadence and melodic phrasing of the tune being performed. This approach marked a significant technical advancement in bodhrán playing, shifting the instrument from a predominantly rhythmic role toward a more musically responsive one. 

Much more at the link.

Extremely detailed study of a painting

I hadn't even finished watching before deciding it was blogworthy, especially when I learned why angel wings resemble watermelon slices.

"Hilma af Klint" - an awesome movie about a remarkable artist

I was blown away last evening watching this documentary movie from our library.   I have zero background education in art history, and had never heard of this woman.  Apparently I am not alone in that regard.  After watching the movie I went to the Wikipedia entry, where it was explained that "The family surname is 'af Klint', af being a Swedish nobiliary particle."  She was of noble (but not royal) lineage, born in a palace and educated at the Royal Academy in the fine arts, beginning with landscape paintings and botanical illustrations:

When she was about twenty years old, something happened that altered her perception of the world.  Details at the link and in the movie, but basically by the time she was 40, she began pouring out an immense number of totally abstract paintings, such as these (cellphone camera images from the movie on my TV):

"The pictures were painted directly through me, without any preliminary drawings, and with great force. I had no idea what the paintings were supposed to depict; nevertheless I worked swiftly and surely, without changing a single brush stroke."

And the final startling fact is that she was creating this art in the early 1900s (before WWI, for reference, and at the time of my grandparents), and that there was no precedent for this style of artistic expression.  Most textbooks date the onset of abstract art to the works of Kandinsky and Mondrian, who followed (?imitated) her.  This lady's paintings were never exhibited in her lifetime because she was a woman and because the style and content of the images were considered "improper" at that time.

Enough from me.  You already know whether you want to see this movie or not.  It may be streamable for $ on Apple or Prime.  I found the DVD in our South Central Wisconsin library system (a huge system that normally has dozens or hundreds of copies of popular movies had only 2 copies of this one).  It can also be ordered directly from Kino Lorber.   Here is the trailer for the movie:

"Rosie the Rock Snake"

Today while on a butterfly hike at Badger Prairie County Park (Verona, Wisconsin) I encountered Rosie the Rock Snake.  This was clearly a community art project, presumably initiated by a local teacher, parent, or scout leader.  I was delighted to see that it has apparently not been subject to thievery or vandalism (remembering that Wisconsin is a state where local farmers leave corn on the cob, pumpkins, and other produce out by the road and invite passers-by to take the veggies and leave some money).  I was also impressed by the quality of the painting on many of the rocks.

Locals who would like to see the artwork just need to find your way to the highest point in the park (where the old water tower used to be).  If you plan to do so, consider bringing a painted rock...

I would also note that today the Monarch butterflies were literally "too numerous to count" because this is the migratory season and the Madison area is under the flyway for legions of Monarchs heading south from areas up north.

(This sort of reminded me of the "ditch ducks" in northern Minnesota)

"Narluga" explained

I didn't know this creature existed.  Saw it mentioned recently and had to go back to a 2019 article by Ed Yong in The Atlantic for an explanation.

Belugas and narwhals are the same size, share the same Arctic waters, and are more closely related to each other than to any other species. Individuals from both species have been found swimming among each other’s pods...

By analyzing DNA extracted from one of the creature’s teeth, a team led by Eline Lorenzen from the Natural History Museum of Denmark showed that it was a male, born to a beluga father and a narwhal mother. Most of its DNA was a half-and-half mix between the two species, but its mitochondrial DNA—a secondary set that animals inherit only from their mothers—was entirely narwhal. “A while back, we presented our findings at a conference of 150 people who are very into belugas, and you could hear a pin drop,” Lorenzen says. “None of them were familiar with hybrids between those two species.”

Lots more science at the link, but this paragraph is particularly interesting:

A brief digression: When naming hybrid animals, patriarchal conventions dictate that the father’s species comes first in the portmanteau. A cub born to a male polar bear and a female grizzly is a pizzly, but one with a grizzly dad and a polar mom is a grolar. So, technically, the skull from Larsen’s toolshed is a belwhal, not a narluga. But the latter name might well stick because it’s been called that for decades and, as Lorenzen says, narluga just sounds better.

So now I know what a pizzly and a grolar are.  You learn something every day.

Vindication for Elizabeth Bathory

I first learned about Elizabeth Bathory 40 years ago when I was researching the manifestations of sleep paralysis in literature and folklore.  She and her servants were accused of secretly murdering hundreds of young woman, an accusation that later morphed into bathing in the blood of the virgins.

This outstanding book meticulously examines and interprets the historical record - no small feat, considering that the primary source documents are in Hungarian, Latin, and Slovak, and because translating seventeenth century idioms and grammar requires specialized knowledge.

I have previously blogged one page from this book describing the general ambience of Hungary in the 1600s.  Elizabeth Bathory was a leading member of the most powerful famiily in Hungary, rivaling the Hapsburgs in wealth and prestige.  But this era was also characterized by extensive discord arising from invading Turkish armies. social unrest triggered by the rise of Lutheranism challenging the established church, and even climate-related crop crises from what is now referred to as a "Little Ice Age."

The wealth and power of the Bathory family constituted an existential threat to the Hapsburgs.  In 1605 Elizabeth controlled 17 castles and reinforced manor houses, and properties extending over about five hundred miles - but she lacked the protection of any male relative - father, husband, brother, or adult son - and thus was an attractive target.

Shelley Puhak's research for this book (25 pages of bibliography plus an additional 30+ pages of endnotes) convincingly documents that the charges against this lady were fabrications, and the "revelations" by the servants about murder and cannibalism were elicited after torture by authorities, all for the purpose of others securing control of her landholdings.

My assessment of the book is similar to what I expressed in my review of Island at the Edge of the World [the history of Rapa Nui].   Both books are scholarly works that correct longstanding myths and misunderstandings, but both are "too much information" for the casual reader.  As much as I loved the subject matter discussed here, I wound up having to skim through detailed explications of the politics of the 1600s.  But I'm glad I found it and I'm happy to share my thoughts with the few readers here who might also find it of interest.

Hammerhead shark embroidery - by Mary, Queen of Scots (~1570)

From the collections of the Victoria and Albert:

[A panel from] The Oxburgh Hangings. Hanging with applied panels of embroidery, formerly at Oxburgh Hall, Norfolk.

Inscriptions: A ZYDRACH ' 'ZYGAENA' hammer headed shark from C Gesner Icones Animalium Aquatilium Zurich 1560 p 150

Mary Queen of Scots' troubled reign in Scotland ended in 1568 when the Scottish Lords forced her to flee across the border into England. As Elizabeth's cousin Mary had long claimed the English throne, leading Elizabeth to see Mary as a threat and place her in the custody of the Earl of Shrewsbury. Mary was held captive in various English country houses for 19 years. She was finally executed in 1587.

Mary Queen of Scots (1542-1587) embroidered these panels with Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury (Bess of Hardwick) and ladies of the household, during her imprisonment. Mary may have intended the large central panel as a cushion for Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel (1557-1595), an English Catholic courtier imprisoned in London by Elizabeth I.

I was startled to learn that she was even aware of the existence of hammerhead sharks, much less that she would embroider one (reasonably accurately). 

Via A London Salmagundi. (Image cropped and brightened from original).  Reposted from 2012.

Addendum:  A tip of the blogging cap to reader Temptoetiam, who provided a link to a JSTOR article which in turn cited the Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes and provided this preview info:

I had no idea of the connection.  Thank you so much.

Native mask decorated with lethal seeds

A ceremonial mask from the Benue River Valley region of Nigeria, from the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The black and red sprinkles are apparently abrus seeds - which is interesting in an of itself, because a quick search reveals that the seeds are more toxic than ricin:

The toxin abrin is a dimer consisting of two protein subunits, termed A and B. The B chain facilitates abrin's entry into a cell by bonding to certain transport proteins on cell membranes, which then transport the toxin into the cell. Once inside the cell, the A chain prevents protein synthesis by inactivating the 26S subunit of the ribosome. One molecule of abrin will inactivate up to 1,500 ribosomes per second. Symptoms are identical to those of ricin, except abrin is more toxic by almost two orders of magnitude; the fatal dose of abrin is approximately 75 times smaller than the fatal dose of ricin...

The seeds of Abrus precatorius are much valued in native jewelry for their bright coloration. Most beans are black and red, suggesting a ladybug, though other colors are available. Jewelry-making with jequirity seeds is dangerous, and there have been cases of death by a finger-prick while boring the seeds for beadwork.

Photo via A London Salmagundi.

Reposted from 2011 (!!) to accompany a new post about seed art at a state fair.

Dandelion bonsai

It was not until my adult retirement years that I began to understand that dandelions are perennials.  I have harvested some really deep-rooted ones in the loose soil of a backyard tomato patch (I even pondered entering one such plant into a state fair ag competition).  And it was not until yesterday that I discovered that they can be used for bonsai-type art.

I found enough other material online to be reassured that the image above isn't pure AI.  Whether it is true "bonsai" can be argued; you can read about such viewpoints at Reddit and via the Google AI.

Interesting Swedish postal cancel

I've had this pair of stamps in my collection for decades, labeled "ventilator" cancels, which I assumed without research was a form of "disinfected mail."

Today when I checked for more information, I discovered that these "ventilations" were not designed to prevent the spread of contagious diseases, but rather to prevent the reuse of the stamps.  Here is some relevant information from the Swedish Postal Museum:

"The "ventilator" cancel (ventilatorstämpel) featured a specialized postmark wheel with built-in, fan-like rotating blades. When the postal clerk pressed the device onto a letter, the wheel spun and physically cut or punctured small, geometric slits directly into the paper fibers of the stamp. If anyone tried to steam or peel the stamp off the envelope to reuse it, the stamp would tear apart along those slits.  Because the security incisions resembled the radial slats of an air vent or ventilation fan, philatelists nicknamed it the "ventilator" cancel. Similar mechanical safety trials from that era included the bikupestämpel ("beehive" cancel) and the sågtandsstämpel ("saw-tooth" cancel)."  

I have some beehive cancels I can post in the future.  Sawtooth ones are apparently exceedingly rare, presumably because they were used only for a short period of time and because anyone trying to remove the stamp to put it in a collection would have wound up with a severely damaged stamp.  The green 5o stamp on the right has a small triangular defect best seen when viewed with my digital microscope:

A history of disinfected mail

As soon as humans became aware that infectious diseases could be transmitted by fomites (inanimate objects), attention was directed to developing methods of disinfection. Postal and public health authorities had to deal with a wide variety of extremely dangerous infections (cholera, yellow fever, smallpox, leprosy, anthrax), and applied a surprising variety of techniques to letters and packages sent through the mails, beginning as early as the 15th century in Venice.

A very informative philatelic exhibit presents examples of how the U.S. has dealth with potentially dangerous items.  Shown at the top, for example, are two letters from locations where yellow fever was present; they have been punctured to allow fumigating agents to reach the inside of the envelope.  The bottom envelope in this image -

- had its corners clipped off so that formaldehyde gas could be introduced to kill smallpox.  Other letters and postcards were autoclaved or steam sterilized, which could be deleterious to the letters inside.

These precautions were not limited to the preantibiotic era.  In 2001 threats of anthrax attacks were made in the United States, and a variety of special precautions, including x-irradiation, had to be undertaken, beginning at this page of the exhibit and continuing for a dozen pages thereafter.  And these letters from Hawaii in 1900 show how holes were punched in the envelopes -

- so that sulfur fumes could be insufflated before they were sent from areas quarantined for bubonic plague.  Other examples are shown of disinfection of mail from the Hawaiian leper colony.

Philatelic exhibitions are conventionally mounted on a series of glass-fronted frames, with up to 16 letter-size pages in one frame, and in this case spread onto six frames.   This award-winning exhibit was created by William A. Sandrik of Arlington, Virginia.  The entire exhibit may be viewed at Exponet (frame 1, frame 2, frame 3, frame 4, frame 5, frame 6).

And those interested in philately (stamp and postal history collecting) should browse the Exponet site beginning at this index page.  Over 600 exhibits are accessible, on a huge variety of topics, in a wide variety of languages.

Reposted from 2011 because of its timely subject matter.   Today a New York Times article addresses the question of transmission of coronavirus by mail:

A representative for the U.S. Postal Service was unwilling to discuss current sanitization protocols. But the agency’s website reports that the only mail items receiving treatment are letters and parcels sent to ZIP codes beginning in 202, 203, 204 and 205, which serve federal government agencies in Washington, D.C. In a process that began shortly after the 2001 anthrax attacks, the Postal Service sends mail destined for those ZIP codes to New Jersey, where they are put on a conveyor belt and passed under a high-energy beam of ionizing radiation that kills bacteria and viruses. The letters and packages are then “aired out” for a while, before being forwarded to their destinations. The paper is left slightly faded and somewhat crispy, but sterile.

Should mail irradiation be extended beyond these exclusive ZIP codes, to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus? On CBS News’s Face the Nation on Sunday morning, Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, warned that SARS-CoV-2 could potentially be transmitted by contaminated objects. “This is a sticky virus,” he said. The structure of the coronavirus’s protective envelope helps it bond tightly to certain surfaces: skin in particular, as well as fabric and wood, but also plastic and steel...

David Partenheimer, a spokesman for the Postal Service, noted that the surgeon general, Dr. Jerome M. Adams, along with the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization, has “indicated that there is currently no evidence that COVID-19 is being spread through the mail.”..

Then again, contact transmission is notoriously difficult to study and document...

Reposted from 2020 to accompany a newer and related post. 

Trichromacy vs. dichromacy

Not sure I trust the image, but the principle appears to be valid.

Until the 1960s, popular belief held that most mammals outside of primates were monochromats. In the last half-century, however, a focus on behavioral and genetic testing of mammals has accumulated extensive evidence of dichromatic color vision in a number of mammalian orders. Mammals are now usually assumed to be dichromats (possessing S- and L-cones), with monochromats viewed as the exceptions.

The common vertebrate ancestor, extant during the Cambrian, was tetrachromatic, possessing 4 distinct opsins classes. Early mammalian evolution would see the loss of two of these four opsins, due to the nocturnal bottleneck, as dichromacy may improve an animal's ability to distinguish colors in dim light. Placental mammals are therefore – as a rule – dichromatic.

The exceptions to this rule of dichromatic vision in placental mammals are old world monkeys and apes, which re-evolved trichromacy, and marine mammals (both pinnipeds and cetaceans) which are cone monochromats. New World Monkeys are a partial exception: in most species, males are dichromats, and about 60% of females are trichromats, but the owl monkeys are cone monochromats, and both sexes of howler monkeys are trichromats.

Trichromacy has been retained or re-evolved in marsupials, where trichromatic vision is widespread. Recent genetic and behavioral evidence suggests the South American marsupial Didelphis albiventris is dichromatic, with only two classes of cone opsins having been found within the genus Didelphis.

Excerpt from the dichromacy entry of Wikipedia (see also trichromacy).  I didn't realize this.  You learn something every day.

I bet I could win bar bets with this factoid

An interesting NOVA program on "desert kites"

This one is many months old, because I save them to a DVR and watch whenever.  I believe what I've embedded above is full-length rather than a teaser trailer.

I didn't watch it when it came out because I thought the "desert kites" were quite obviously the terrestrial equivalent of fish weirs in coastal environments.  The interesting reveal to me was that the ancient people constructing these were able to create "death pits" using walls of just the right height so that an antelope's vision wouldn't see the presence of the pit, which was lined with smooth stones to prevent escape.  Basically like creating a "head-smashed-in buffalo jump" where there were no natural cliffs.  And these were very early people from the Neolithic era.

The video also takes advantage of modern computer image generation and drone photography in rather effective ways.  NOVA programs have always been of the highest quality.

Prefix of the day: "pene"

This rock was identified at the whatsthisrock subreddit as a "penecontemporaneous deformation structure."  It apparently is such a commonly-used term that it is shortened by users to "PCD."  There is excellent informed discussion at the link to explain that PCDs are formed when sedimentary material is deformed during deposition ("contemporaneously").  Lots of further details at Geological Digressions.

I thought the rock was cool, but what grabbed my attention was the fact that I am an English major almost 80 years of age and I'm seeing a prefix that is not in my wheelhouse.

Onward to the Wiktionary entry for "pene":

Almost the thing or quality expressed by the root, as peneplain (almost a plain), peninsula (almost an island), penultimate (almost the last), penumbra (almost in shadow).

Wow.  Three words I've used for essentially all my adult life without appreciating their common prefix.

You learn something every day.

Postal history of the Telemark coast of Norway

The video is a full-length recording of an hour-long presentation at the Boston 2026 World Exposition of Philately.  The Telemark postal district is situated west of Oslo, and the coast extends from Skien on the north to Kragero on the southwest.  This presentation discusses postal history of this region up through the end of the 19th century.  The information will be of most interest to serious philatelists or to others interested in Scandinavian history.

One item will also be of interest to anyone who has a relative or friend whose last name is Odegaard.  When the Black Plague arrived in Norway in 1349, approximately 2/3 of the population died.  Some of those who survived moved to the abandoned farms.  "Odegaard" is Norwegian for "abandoned farm."  You learn something every day.

"Mogging" explained

Mogging’s origins are in the manosphere, where it began as a verb derived from the acronym “Amog” (alpha male of the group). In misogynistic forums in the 2010s, to “mog” came to mean to outdo someone in terms of sexual desirability. Mogging has been adopted by “looksmaxxing” influencers such as Braden Peters, known online as Clavicular, who encourage men to try to alter their looks – sometimes in extreme ways – to increase their “sexual market value”. Such an influencer might talk of “frame mogging” another person in a photo or video – a variation on mogging that specifically refers to being more muscular.

Even now, as the term has begun to be used much more widely, and in a tongue-in-cheek way, it is still typically associated with looks (a friend of mine, for example, was described by her boyfriend’s younger siblings as “mogging him” in a photo). But increasingly, mogging can mean besting others at basically anything. The gold medal Olympic figure skater Alysa Liu said in an interview last year that her main competition strategy was “to mog”, while a 23-year-old colleague of mine tells me that she and her friends joke about “walk-mogging” when they overtake people on the street.

Discussion continues at The Guardian.

These windshield dots have a function

Explained at the whatdoesthismean subreddit:

Those little black dots on your car’s windshield are called frits. They are printed on the glass using baked-on ceramic paint and serve several important purposes: Secure the Glass: The solid black band and the dots provide a rougher, etched surface for the urethane glue to bond the windshield to the car frame. Protect the Adhesive: The solid black border acts as a shield to block harmful UV rays from degrading the glue and keeping it strong over time. Regulate Heat: The dots decrease in size as they move away from the solid black band. This creates a gradient that absorbs and distributes heat evenly, preventing the glass from warping, cracking, or suffering from optical distortion when it gets hot in the sun. Reduce Glare: They diffuse harsh sunlight so you don't experience intense contrast between the dark frame and clear glass.

Found in the hair of a trauma victim...

The patient's wife posted this image in the whatisit subreddit, where I learned that this is a modern xray marker.  I spent 30 years reviewing chest xrays, and back in the previous century the xray markers were less elaborate.  Classically the orientation was indicated with a lead "R" or "L" (or full word "LEFT") -

- sometimes with a movable pellet inside to indicate upright, supine, or decubitus positioning...

Nowadays apparently the standard is to have the xray technician's initials incorporated into the marker, which the technician can (?has to) buy from sites like Etsy -

You learn something every day - even stuff you thought you knew.