Archive for April, 2020
19 Apr 2020
This Tweet has attracted a lot of attention.
19 Apr 2020
The Atlantic has news about an interesting new approach to DNA study.
The York Gospels were assembled more than a thousand years ago. Bound in leather, illustrated, and illuminated, the book contains the four gospels of the Bible as well as land records and oaths taken by clergymen who read, rubbed, and kissed its pages over centuries. The Archbishops of York still swear their oaths on this book.
The York Gospels are also, quite literally, a bunch of old cow and sheep skins. Skin has DNA, and DNA has its own story to tell.
A group of archaeologists and geneticists in the United Kingdom have now analyzed the remarkably rich DNA reservoir of the York Gospels. They found DNA from humans who swore oaths on its pages and from bacteria likely originating on the hands and mouths of those humans. Best of all though, they found 1,000-year-old DNA from the cows and sheep whose skin became the parchment on which the book is written.
Remarkably, the authors say they extracted all this DNA without destroying even a tiny piece of parchment. All they needed were the crumbs from rubbing the book with erasers, which conservationists routinely use to clean manuscripts. The authors report their findings in a preprint that, as of this article’s publication, has not yet been peer-reviewed, though they plan to submit it to a scientific journal.
If their technique works, it could revolutionize the use of parchment to study history. Every one of these books is a herd of animals. Using DNA, researchers might track how a disease changed the makeup of a herd or how the skin of sheep from one region moved to another medieval trade routes. It’s part of a growing movement to bring together scholars in the sciences and humanities to study medieval manuscripts.
Scientists have extracted DNA from parchment before, but this non-destructive technique expands the potential pool of research material. Archivists are loathe to allow researchers to cut off a piece of, say, the York Gospels, but some eraser crumbs? Sure. “That’s why it’s such an exciting breakthrough. It allows a lot of different manuscripts from a lot of different areas to be analyzed together,†says Bruce Holsinger, an English professor at the University of Virginia who is writing a book about parchment.
The idea to study parchment came to Matthew Collins, an archaeologist at the University of York, after a failed study in bones. A few years ago, he had a graduate student trying to extract ancient DNA from animal bones at an old Viking settlement. There were thousands of bones on the site, but only six that they tested yielded DNA—too few for any statistically significant results. “You can imagine the frustration,†says Collins.
So Collins got to thinking about archives full of old manuscripts. “You look at these shelves, and every one of them has a skin of an animal with a date written on it,†he says. Suddenly you have thousands of animals. And you didn’t even need to go out into the field and dig.
RTWT
18 Apr 2020
Joseph Denis Odavaere, Lord Byron on his Death-bed, c. 1826, Groeningemuseum, Bruges, Belgium.
On this day in 1824, 6pm, Missolonghi: Byron’s doctor hears him say “I want to sleep now” as he falls into a coma. He will die the next day.
“The mountains look on Marathon”
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
I dream’d that Greece might still be free.”
18 Apr 2020
Shin Hanga print, From Series: “Twelve Scenes of Famous Places,” circa 1930.
17 Apr 2020
Old package with Indian Maiden “Mia”.
————————————-
New woke package.
The Minnesota Farmer has bad news about a classic brand.
For nearly a century, the Land O’Lakes Indian maiden has kneeled by the side of a blue lake holding out an offering of a 4-stick box of butter.
No more. The Minnesota-based farmer cooperative has redesigned its packaging to focus on celebrating farmers ahead of its 100th anniversary next year.
“We need packaging that reflects the foundation and heart of our company culture — and nothing does that better than our farmer-owners whose milk is used to produce Land O’Lakes’ dairy products,†President and CEO Beth Ford said in a statement in February.
The new packaging looks much like the old packaging — blue lake, green pine trees, yellow horizon — just minus Mia, the name of the Indian maiden.
The release made no mention of why the company decided to remove the character from their packaging. The entire Land O’Lakes website seems to have been scrubbed of any mention of the iconic mascot.
A spokeswoman for Land O’Lakes did not respond to a request for comment submitted Monday.
For Native Americans who have long criticized the use of Indian mascots, the change is a welcome one.
“It’s a great move,†said Adrienne Keene, a professor at Brown University, author of the popular Native Appropriations blog and citizen of the Cherokee Nation. “It makes me really happy to think that there’s now going to be an entire generation of folks that are growing up without having to see that every time they walk in the grocery store.â€
Well, Beth Ford, you can go sell your butter in future to crackpots and leftist grievance mongers like Adrienne Keene. You won’t be selling any more to me.
17 Apr 2020
themaninthegreenshirt:
“As long as we only talk about economic classes, profit, salaries, and production, and as long as we believe that real human progress is determined by a particular system of distribution of wealth and goods, then we are not even close to what is essential.“
— Julius Evola
17 Apr 2020
The Post includes with the story of his disapppearance a good précis of Peter Beard’s colorful career:
Peter Beard has swum with crocodiles, been charged by rhinos and trampled by a herd of elephants. Writer Bob Colacello once aptly described him as “half Tarzan, half Byron.â€
For decades, he’s led a larger-than-life existence, both in his work and his romances with some of the world’s most beautiful women — including Candice Bergen, Cheryl Tiegs, Lee Radziwill and “For Your Eyes Only†Bond girl Carole Bouquet. It’s hard to imagine him just fading away.
But on March 31, the 82-year-old wildlife photographer — now said to be suffering from dementia — wandered away from the luxuriously rustic home in Montauk, Long Island, that he shares with his wife, Nejma, and their daughter, Zara. He hasn’t been seen since. …
Beard’s whereabouts remain a mystery despite an extensive search by 100 police officers, a helicopter, drones and K-9 units. But some who know him remain unfazed.
“I was not shocked,†model Cheryl Tiegs, who was married to Beard from 1982 until 1986, told The Post of his disappearance.
“Maybe someone picked Peter up and he is on a joyride across America. He does pretty wacky things. The night after we got married, he did not come home until dawn.
The photographer made his name by turning photos into one-of-a-kind works of art. Selling for more than $500,000, his creations are splattered with blood and scrawls of ink, and affixed with personal mementos.
“I felt beyond privileged to watch him making art, to see him walking around and deciding which pieces got blood and which didn’t,†Peter Tunney, Beard’s former business manager and art dealer, told The Post.
“I remember a picture of his with Uma Thurman’s mother [model Nena von Schlebrügge] on top of a crashed car. She was there because Peter couldn’t get [the model] Veruschka that day. Salvador Dalà stood alongside the car.â€
Everyone who knows Beard inevitably brings up his movie-star good looks, penchant for carousing, rough-hewn charm — and habit of disappearing when the mood strikes. Friends nicknamed him Walkabout.
However, they reluctantly add, advanced age and hard living have taken a toll. As a longtime pal recalled to The Post: “Not long ago, I saw Peter at an event, went up to him and said hello. He didn’t recognize me. And we used to talk on the phone almost every day.â€
RTWT
16 Apr 2020
The Speaker of the House has not only a small ton of ice cream, we notice, but also not one, but two enormous Sub-Zeros in her mansion on Pacific Heights in San Francisco to console her, not to mention her vinyard on the banks of the Napa River, and a million-dollar condo on the Georgetown waterfront. Odd, isn’t it, how filthy rich the tribunes of the poor and leaders of the war against the rich tend to be?
HT: Vanderleun.
Update:
16 Apr 2020
Sad news from The Telegraph:
Prince Harry will give up hunting because Meghan does not like it, the Duke’s fellow conservation champion Dr Jane Goodall has said.
Harry and Meghan are both fans of the world-renowned chimpanzee activist, 86, and the Prince interviewed her for Vogue magazine last year.
Harry and Meghan are now living in lockdown close to Hollywood, Los Angeles. Dr Goodall said she thought Harry is finding the move to LA amid the global pandemic “a bit challenging” following his move to North America from Canada and may give up hunting because of Meghan, who is a keen animal activist.
Her comments come after Harry has skipped several Royal Family hunts, with some sources close to the couple claiming he has shunned the activity because of Meghan.
The activist believes that Harry and his brother, the Duke of Cambridge, work to protect the natural world – apart from when they hunt.
She told the Radio Times: “Yes [they champion the natural world] except they hunt and shoot. But I think Harry will stop because Meghan doesn’t like hunting, so I suspect that is over for him.
“I don’t know how his career is going to map out, but yes, I’ve been in touch, though I think he’s finding life a bit challenging just now.”
Harry has missed several huntings, including the Royal’s annual summer holiday hunt at Balmoral in Scotland in August 2018. He also missed the Royal Boxing Day shoot at Sandringham in 2017.
In another interview with Jane Goodall in September’s edition of Vogue magazine, Harry pledged not to have “too many” children of his own in light of the environmental pressures facing the planet.
The Duke, who has one baby boy, Archie, said having a son had made him think more about the environment, underlining how he “should be able to leave something better behind for the next generation”.
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