Plague in prairie dog towns

Carnivorous mice spread deadly plague: "Grasshopper mice have no respect for prairie dog territories,' Jones said. 'They're nasty little beasties, and when they eat the carcass of a prairie dog that's died of plague, the fleas climb aboard the mice. The mice then schlep the fleas around to different territories, connecting family groups that otherwise wouldn't be in contact."

Portus

New discovery at Portus, the ancient port of Rome: "Archaeologists from the University of Southampton, University of Cambridge and the British School at Rome, have discovered one of the largest canals every built by the Romans. They believe it linked Portus with the nearby Roman river port of Ostia."

Patience is a virtue

Yes, I am very patient but I've been waiting for more than a year and I'm feeling somewhat unvirtuous.

Canoe Plants

The Canoe Plants of Ancient Hawaii: "tracks the path of various important plants carried in voyaging canoes crisscrossing Oceania, and finally to the middle of the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii."

Species of the day

Natural History Museum: "365 days, 365 species.

We are publishing a fact file on a different species every day during 2010 to celebrate the UN's international Year of Biodiversity.

Each species we explore has been chosen and written about by a Museum scientist. All the information, images, facts and stories contained within the species files has also been provided by them."

British Lichen

Parasites: "These are often recorded and studied by lichenologists since they are frequently found when looking for lichens."

Clare Commune

The Ralahine Commune: "was a co-operative society founded in 1831 on the estate of John Vandeleur at Ralahine, Co. Clare. In an attempt to keep his tenants away from secret societies like the “Ribbonmen”… After two years however, it collapsed. Vandeleur’s reckless lifestyle and his gambling habit finally brought an end to the experiment."

Piltdown Man Hoax

Uckfield Photography: "John Frisby received some national attention as a photographer when he became associated with the discovery of fragments of a supposedly pre-historic human skull in gravel beds near Piltdown"

Neva

Women's Clothing Patterns and Household Design Templates from St. Petersburg's 'Neva' Magazine 1905-1913: "Cheryl Mitchell has graciously scanned in the plates at FULL SIZE."
(The above image is only a detail of one of the plates and is reduced 50%).

Arpillera

Chilean Women’s Resistance in the Arpillera Movement: "During the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, many Chilean women created complex tapestries depicting the harsh conditions of life and the pain resulting from the disappeared victims of Pinochet’s repression. These tapestries, known as arpilleras, get their name from the Spanish word for the burlap backing they used. However, through their art they came to represent much more in the history of modern Chile."

Tailoring the past

Reine des Centfeuilles: Really impressive, reproductions of antique clothing and accessories. Check out some of the detail shots. The fans are excellent too.

Game Censorship

Nintendo's Era of Censorship: J.J. McCullough - with further links.

History

Livius: "Articles on Ancient History"

Yearbooks revisited

For those that may have looked at the Yearbooks post and have been interested in the 1907 book but put off at the format provided by the site (I obviously was), I have taken the liberty of creating a PDF (so that I can read it on my iPad) and I make it available for you, dear reader, to download at BlueWhite.pdf [20.51MB] (for the next 3 days). It makes for interesting reading as a snapshot of the times. Some of the content make shock the younger reader that is not familiar with how common words like 'nigger' and suchlike were used, but read it with the times in mind. The students come across as cruel at times but essentially honest in their appraisals of each other. There is a palpable sense of camaraderie in the stories and pictures of the medical students and I found it to be a fascinating documentation of the times.

Zebra Finch Songs

Williams, H. (1997) Zebra Finch Song Archive: "The birds whose songs are available on this archive trace their ancestry to a single pair."

Corrosive fluid discharge

Bombardier beetle: "A bombardier beetle produces and stores two reactant chemical compounds hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide in separate reservoirs in the rear tip of its abdomen. When threatened, the beetle contracts muscles that force the two reactants through valved tubes into a mixing chamber containing water and a mixture of catalytic enzymes. When combined, the reactants undergo a violent exothermic chemical reaction raising the temperature to near the boiling point of water. The corresponding pressure buildup forces the entrance valves from the reactant storage chambers to close, thus protecting the beetle's internal organs. The boiling, foul-smelling liquid partially becomes a gas (flash evaporation) and is expelled through an outlet valve into the atmosphere with a loud popping sound."

Yearbooks

Saint Louis University School Yearbooks: Compare 1907 with 2005.

Fernand Mourlot

Le Taureau de Picasso: "The printing process took fifteen days. On December 5th 1945, one month after his first visit to the rue Chabrol studio, Picasso made a wash drawing of a bull. A wonderful bull, very well rendered, sweet, even. Then we printed the proofs - only two or three, making this first state of the bull an extremely rare. One week later he returned and asked for a fresh stone; he made another wash drawing and quill drawing; then he started again on the 18th. For the third state he changed technique, scraping down to the stone and drawing over to accentuate the contours; the bull became a terrible creature, with terrifying horns and eyes. Well, that wouldn't do - Picasso took the composition to the fourth state, on December 22, and then a fifth on December 24. Each time he simplified the drawing; it bacame more and more geometric, with zones of flat black… He then made the sixth and seventh states (December 26th and 28th), and then four more between January 5th and 17th - eleven in all. The taureau was reduced to its essential form, rendered in a few perfectly placed lines which symbolized this poor bull with his pinhead and ridiculous horns like antennae. The workers all regretted seeing such a magnificent bull transformed bit by bit into a sort of insect".

"It was Célestin who finally expressed it: "Picasso ended up where normally he should have started." It's true; but in order to achieve his pure and linear rendering of the bull, he had to pass through all of the intermediary stages. And when you stand before his eleventh bull, it's hard to imagine the work that went into it"..."

Fernand Mourlot, Gravés dans ma mémoire, Ed. Robert Laffont, 1979

L'Alcoolisme

Alcohol: is bad for society (is that a flaming dildo in his left hand?), rabbits, human brains and feet.

Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum

CVA: An illustrated catalogue of more than 100,000 ancient vases.