February 2009
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WatchThe Machine. Click through, because it’s worth watching in a larger screen size.
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Oldest Human Footprints With Modern Anatomy Found... →
The rare prints were found embedded in what was once muddy soil among tracks of ancient birds, lions, antelopes, and other critters. Harris said the print makers were likely walking to or from a watering hole.
The size and spacing of the footprints indicate they were made by people with bodies similar to modern humans. Given their age, the prints were most likely made by Homo erectus, the first...
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The unrecognizable internet of 1996 -- Slate →
We all know that the Internet has changed radically since the ’90s, but there’s something dizzying about going back to look at how people spent their time 13 years ago. Sifting through old Web pages today is a bit like playing video games from the 1970s; the fun is in considering how awesome people thought they were, despite all that was missing.
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Can You Shoot Down a Helicopter With a Pistol? --... →
Yes, just aim for the tail or the pilot. The tail rotor is critical for stability in the air, but it’s generally made of light and vulnerable materials such as fiberglass and hollow aluminum. If a bullet were to strike it in the right place, one of the propeller blades could break off, throwing the craft into a spin. (Even a stray article of clothing can get sucked into the tail rotor and...
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M. Ward — To Go Home
I saw M. Ward in...
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Rapid Recon: Mexican President: Gov't Does Not... →
Language acknowledging a government’s inability to control and extend its writ to its border regions is what we have come to expect from Pakistani leaders regarding the Federally Administered Tribal Areas dominated by al-Qaeda and the Taliban along the Afghanistan border. Folks, this is the president of Mexico essentially saying the same thing about Mexico’s regions on the American...
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Lance is back, and still the star -- Sports... →
I’ve been watching the Tour of California coverage on Versus, and it’s bizarre to hear them mentioning Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton and Ivan Basso among the peloton. I’d planned to stop following cycling after the numerous doping scandals, but Lance’s return drew me back.
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The Building That Runs Rings Around the Wiliest... →
Even in the best of times, navigating the Pentagon is not easy for the uninitiated. Newcomers have always been daunted by the 17 miles of corridors, the pentagonal rings and the byzantine basement — not to mention the sheer vastness of the 6.2 million-square-foot place. The task is particularly challenging these days, as the extensive Pentagon renovation project has closed off the...
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In the Wheat Fields of Kenya, a Budding Epidemic... →
A virulent new version of a deadly fungus is ravaging wheat in Kenya’s most fertile fields and spreading beyond Africa to threaten one of the world’s principal food crops, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization.
Stem rust, a killer that farmers thought they had defeated 50 years ago, surfaced here in 1999, jumped the Red Sea to Yemen in 2006 and...
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Cooking Has Been Both Boon and Bane for Humans --... →
Wrangham cited data showing that cooking increases the body’s ability to digest starches (as found, for example, in bread, potatoes and bananas). Only about 50 percent of raw starches are digested, compared to 90 percent of cooked ones. The trend, and the numbers, are similar for protein: from 50 to 65 percent digestibility raw to better than 90 percent cooked.
The reason: Heat breaks down...
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Watch
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800 Billion Reasons To Be Worried -- Reason... →
[O]ne more thing to consider: There is absolutely no evidence that any stimulus package in the past 80 years has goosed economic activity—not FDR’s during the Great Depression, not Japan’s during the 1990s, and not George W. Bush’s in 2001 and 2008. If anything, the economic evidence suggests that such spending packages actually intensified and prolonged misery.
Instead of rushing through...
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Commerce Department Waives Syria Sanctions --... →
Assad’s government doesn’t just have a fist. It has tentacles. They are barbed and venomous (just ask anyone who has run afoul of the Syrian secret police) and they are richly entwined with just about every deadly racket in the Middle East—from arms smuggling, to state support for an array of terrorist groups, to targeted political assassinations, to illicit pursuit of nuclear...
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Russian, U.S. satellites collide in space --... →
The collision produced two large debris clouds, which are not believed to pose a threat to the International Space Station as long as the clouds continue moving in a lower orbit, Roscosmos said. There is a chance the debris could hit other satellites at the same altitude, however… … The Russian satellite was launched in 1993 and is considered inoperative, news agency Itar-Tass and the...
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Black Cab Sessions: Amanda Palmer →
[video through link]
Amanda hobbled into the back of the cab with a cast on her leg but this did nothing to dampen her spirits as she belted out a Radiohead cover, and filled the back of the cab with her captivating voice and style. And who would’ve thought she only knows 6 chords on the ukulele?
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UNDERCOVER AT WAL-MART, THE HEARTLAND SUPERSTORE... →
Based on my experience (admittedly, only at one location) I reached a conclusion which is utterly opposed to almost everything ever written about Wal-Mart. I came to regard it as one of the all-time enlightened American employers, right up there with IBM in the 1960s. Wal-Mart is not the enemy. It’s the best friend we could ask for.
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MMR doctor Andrew Wakefield fixed data on autism... →
Confidential medical documents and interviews with witnesses have established that Andrew Wakefield manipulated patients’ data, which triggered fears that the MMR triple vaccine to protect against measles, mumps and rubella was linked to the condition. The research was published in February 1998 in an article in The Lancet medical journal. It claimed that the families of eight out of 12 children...
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