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Tuesday, July 6, 2021

Early summer, July 6th, 2021

Animals give each other names! 

Can It Be? Parrots Name Their Children, And Those Names, Like Ours, Stick For Life


For the data-loving dendrophiles, NYC Parks has mapped every streetside tree in the city

 New York City Street Tree Map

Brilliant song about a sociopath! Written in 2004 by the Mitguards. Pity the title is Born Without a Conscience because sociopaths are created, not born (unless they're psychopaths, but psychopaths too are almost always created, nature via nurture). Still, an excellent song and appropriate for many.


From Swarthmore University's History 41: The American Colonies the amazing journal entries by Christopher Columbus about his voyage West, intending to arrive in India.

Christopher Columbus, Journal (1492)

and Bartoleme de Las Casas, Brief Account of the Devastation of the Indies. (1542)


The world's oldest known water was found in an ancient pool below Canada in 2016, and is at least 2 billion years old.

Back in 2013 scientists found water dating back about 1.5 billion years at the Kidd Mine in Ontario, but in 2016, deeper investigation revealed an even older source buried underground.

The initial discovery of the ancient liquid in 2013 came at a depth of around 2.4 kilometers (1.5 miles) in an underground tunnel in the mine. But the extreme depth of the mine – which at 3.1 kilometers (1.9 miles) is the deepest base metal mine in the world – gave researchers the opportunity to keep digging.

"[The 2013 find] really pushed back our understanding of how old flowing water could be and so it really drove us to explore further," geochemist Barbara Sherwood Lollar from the University of Toronto told Rebecca Morelle at the BBC back in 2016.

"And we took advantage of the fact that the mine is continuing to explore deeper and deeper into the earth."


Low doses of "laughing gas" could be fast, effective treatment for severe depression

In a phase 2 clinical trial, researchers found a one-hour inhalation session with 25% nitrous oxide gas improved depression symptoms for over two weeks


Oooh, a very cool car design history infographic webpage


The history of enameling

Enamelling is a technique which is closely associated with goldsmithing and jewellery art, as well as with precious metalwork of all types. Derived from the Latin word "smaltum", the Old French word "esmail", and the Anglo-Norman French word "enamailler", enamelling emerged during the era of Aegean art as one of the first and most spectacular methods of making metal more colourful, without the need for precious or semi-precious stones. In this technique of decorative art, vitreous enamel (in the form of a powder or paste) is applied to a metal surface and then subjected to intense heat, which melts the enamel turning it into a brilliant glass-like substance which also gives the metal a hard, long-lasting surface. By varying the ingredients, this glass-like coating can be made semi-transparent or opaque, while its colour is regulated by adding various metal oxides such as iron, cobalt, praseodymium and others. Enamelling is related to other types of art - especially mosaics and ceramics, as well as painting; moreover, in its reliance on metallurgy, it has affinities with glass production - see, Stained Glass Art: Materials & Methods - one reason why it flourished during the era of Romanesque architecture when the demand for stained glass soared. Modern enamelling is exemplified above all by the exquisite Fabergé Easter eggs supplied to the Romanovs in St Petersburg. Enamel has been used to embellish a wide range of metal items, including: weapons and equestrian trappings; domestic items like mirrors and vases, ecclesiastical objects, including reliquaries, altar-screens, caskets, chalices and crosiers; drawing room items, such as decorative items, snuffboxes, bottles, candlesticks, etuis and thimbles.


 The Order of the Good Death

Welcome to the Order. Welcome to Your Mortality.

The Order is about making death a part of your life. Staring down your death fears—whether it be your own death, the death of those you love, the pain of dying, the afterlife (or lack thereof), grief, corpses, bodily decomposition, or all of the above. Accepting that death itself is natural, but the death anxiety of modern culture is not.


What Covid-19's long tail is
 revealing about disease
COVID-19 “Long Hauler” SymptomsSurvey Report7/25/2020
More than 50 Long-term effects of COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis



















Friday, July 2, 2021

July 2nd, 2021

 An awesome story

Linda Zall is disclosing how she toiled anonymously within the intelligence agency to help scientists intensify their studies of a changing planet.

Linda Zall played a starring role in American science that led to decades of major advances. But she never described her breakthroughs on television, or had books written about her, or received high scientific honors. One database of scientific publications lists her contributions as consisting of just three papers, with a conspicuous gap running from 1980 to 2020.

The reason is that Dr. Zall’s decades of service to science were done in the secretive warrens of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Now, at 70, she’s telling her story — at least the parts she’s allowed to talk about — and admirers are praising her highly classified struggle to put the nation’s spy satellites onto a radical new job: environmental sleuthing.

“It was fun,” she said of her C.I.A. career. “It was really a lot of fun.”

Dr. Zall’s program, established in 1992, was a kind of wayback machine that looked to as long ago as 1960. In so doing, it provided a new baseline for assessing the pace and scope of planetary change. Ultimately, it led to hundreds of papers, studies and reports — some classified top secret, some public, some by the National Academy of Sciences, the premier scientific advisory group to the federal government. The accumulated riches included up to six decades of prime data on planetary shifts in snowfall and blizzards, sea ice and glaciers.

“None of this would have happened without her,” said Jeffrey K. Harris, who worked with Dr. Zall as director of the National Reconnaissance Office, which runs the nation’s fleet of orbital spies. “You have to decide if you’re going to break down the wall or climb over it, and she did a little bit of both.”

Tuesday, April 6, 2021

Sublime bluegrass

 Molly Tuttle - White Freightliner Blues and Rhythm Lead Switching


Out of nearly 3 million Michiganders who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, only 246 have contracted COVID-19 and three people have died from the virus, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

According to the MDHHS, those people tested positive 14 or more days after the last dose of their vaccine. Between Jan. 1 and March 31, 117 of the 246 had hospitalization data entered and 11 were hospitalized.

The MDHHS said the three people who died were all 65 years or older, and two of the three were within three weeks of completing their vaccine.




Monday, March 29, 2021

Somebody That I Used To Know, March 2021

uh oh. Do not buy hand sanitizer with benzene as an ingredient. 

Samples from 44 hand sanitizer products contained benzene, an industrial chemical known to cause leukemia and carry other serious health risks  


Ultrasound has potential to damage coronaviruses

A new study by researchers in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering suggests that coronaviruses may be vulnerable to ultrasound vibrations, within the frequencies used in medical diagnostic imaging. (Learn more: https://news.mit.edu/2021/ultrasound-...)


COVID killed your sense of smell? Here’s how experts train people to get theirs back


The link between COVID and smell and taste disturbance became apparent in March 2020 as the pandemic swept around the globe. To date, nearly 100 million people have been infected with coronavirus. Around 60% will have experienced smell and taste disturbance – with 10% having persistent symptoms. This means that about 6 million people – and rising – have this symptom. So what can be done about it?...

We agreed that the best treatment is smell training and that vitamin A drops may also be a treatment option to consider. ...

Lemon and orange rind, nutmeg, clove, mint, eucalyptus, ground coffee, coconut and vanilla are all common items that can be used. A good guide to the technique can be found on the charity website Fifth Sense...

More recent studies have suggested that the four smells used for training should be changed every 12 weeks. The results of this new approach show that greater recovery of smell function can be achieved. Further research also shows that the longer the training continues for, in terms of number of weeks, the better. So keep going as it’s not an instant result.


Yikes. Funny scary awful images of not safe conditions on the Boston Home Inspectors Instagram page.


Meet the spouses whose marriages were destroyed by QAnon

A therapist who specializes in cult recovery says he's "never seen anything like this before"


Awesome distraction and entertainment while you crochet, knit, do stuff.

This new season of black mirror is wild: This woman from Myanmar was recording her aerobics class. Unbeknownst to her, she records the military Junta arriving to the parliament for a coup d'etat in the background

Somebody That I Used To Know

I love the full story of this song

Now and then I think of when we were together
Like when you said you felt so happy you could die
Told myself that you were right for me
But felt so lonely in your company
But that was love and it's an ache I still remember
You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness
Like resignation to the end, always the end
So when we found that we could not make sense
Well, you said that we would still be friends
But I'll admit that I was glad it was over
But you didn't have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened and that we were nothing
And I don't even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger and that feels so rough
No, you didn't have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records
And then change your number
I guess that I don't need that though
Now you're just somebody that I used to know
Now you're just somebody that I used to know
Now you're just somebody that I used to know
Now and then, I think of all the times you screwed me over
But had me believing it was always something that I'd done
But I don't wanna live that way
Reading into every word you say
You said that you could let it go
And I wouldn't catch, you hung up on
Somebody that you used to know
But you didn't have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened and that we were nothing
And I don't even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger and that feels so rough
And you didn't have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records
And then change your number
I guess that I don't need that though
Now you're just somebody that I used to know
Somebody (I used to know)
Somebody (Now you're just somebody that I used to know)
Somebody (I used to know)
Somebody (Now you're just somebody that I used to know)
Somebody

Friday, March 19, 2021

The ancient fabric that no one knows how to make, gossamer muslin, made of tree cotton

 Gossamer muslin,  made in India and Bangladesh


The ancient fabric that no one knows how to make











The original muslin from Bengal, in eastern India for clothing, quilts and sheets was not made of the cotton that grows on bushes but from a distinct type of cotton that grows on trees. A much softer cotton. So gossamer it's like spinning spider's web silk. The stuff of fairies.

It is usually handwoven into fabric that is sheer, super light weight.

The Indian name for this tree cotton is "phuti karpas", pronounced footee karpass. The Latin name is Gossypium arboreum.

There is more heavyweight muslin out of regular shrub cotton used for all kinds of things too, like bags or ordinary sheeting fabric. This post is about the very fine muslin, made of "tree cotton", handwoven in Bengal India.


MUSLIN SPINNING AND WEAVING

In Kalna, West Bengal, we visited Rajib Debnath. He and his father Jyotish are reviving the art of muslin jamdani weaving.

The raw cotton is spun by hand into a thread finer than a hair from my head (see below). The cotton is handpicked in Kerala and Maharashtra and then spun by women with very good eyesight.


Jamdani is a fine muslin cloth on which decorative motifs are woven on the loom, typically in grey and white.



Different types of cotton plants










How tree cotton looks, Gossypium arboreum


Our Story of Dhaka Muslin

“What’s muslin?”

Muslin, he said, was the name of a legendary cloth made of cotton, fit for emperors, which used to be made way back in the past. Muslin from Dacca had been the finest, he said, from where it used to be shipped to the far corners of the world. 

THE WORD “MUSLIN” is popularly believed to derive from Marco Polo’s description of the cotton trade in Mosul, Iraq. (The Bengali term is mul mul.) A more modern view is that of fashion historian Susan Greene, who wrote that the name arose in the 18th century from mousse, the French word for “foam.”

Muslin today has come to mean almost any lightweight, gauzy, mostly inexpensive, machine-milled cotton cloth. The word has lost all connection to the handwoven fabric that once came exclusively from Bengal.





















The cliché in India and Bangladesh is that 6 yards of fabric is so fine, it can pass through a finger ring

Revival of Dhakai Muslin: Commercial production will create global market

Durga Puja Off White Behula Dhakai jamdani Saree Soft Finish Women Formal Sari from West Bengal hand Weaving 603


Bengal’s weavers revive muslin, spin success

How fine muslin can pass through a finger ring. Its revival has improved livelihoods of many spinners and weavers (Photo by Gurvinder Singh)

Reviving Muslin



Hand woven muslin cloth, sheer, super light weight and gossamer soft


Rajasthan, India is famous for its super soft muslin sheets and lightweight quilts, called razai.

These quilts are lightly filled with cotton or kapok.

Fairy soft, lightweight sheets are made of muslin, often called mul mul in India. 


On eBay for example the words used to find these super soft, light quilts or muslin cotton fabric might be


Rajasthan traditional Sanganeri Jaipuri rajai or razai, Dhaka or Dhakai 

muslin Behula rajdani 





























On PicClick, under the search for Jaipuri razai

Exquisitely lightweight kurta (India tunics) and other articles of clothing made of sheer muslin are made in the Indian city of Lucknow. Super soft. They are starched in the photographs to hold their form.

Buyable on Etsy at 

LucknowiArts

The Killian Kurta at Lucknowi Arts on Etsy