{"id":252852,"date":"2022-11-11T18:47:24","date_gmt":"2022-11-11T18:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/?p=252852"},"modified":"2022-11-11T18:47:24","modified_gmt":"2022-11-11T18:47:24","slug":"dispute-over-java-man-who-owns-ancient-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2022\/11\/11\/dispute-over-java-man-who-owns-ancient-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Dispute over Java man: Who owns ancient history?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Note<\/strong>: This is a version of my personal newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can\u00a0see other issues\u00a0and sign up here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Naturalis Biodiversity Center, a popular natural history museum in the Netherlands, owns about 40,000 prehistoric objects collected in the 19th century by the Dutch physician Eug\u00e8ne Dubois from the banks of the Bengawan Solo, a river in Java, and at other digs in Indonesia. The highlight is a femur and skull fragment from Java Man, the first known specimen of Homo erectus<\/a>, long considered a \u201cmissing link\u201d between humans and apes. But the remains are not just a museum centerpiece, they are also the focal point of an international restitution battle: Indonesia has said it wants the femur and skull fragment back. But even that is just the beginning \u2014 ultimately, it says it wants the entire Dubois Collection returned. Which raises the question: Who owns prehistory?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Asteroid that created earth’s largest crater was much bigger than some thought<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

About two billion years ago, an asteroid hurtled toward Earth, crashing into the planet near present-day Johannesburg, creating the largest crater we know of. Based on the size of the crater, scientists previously estimated the asteroid was about 15 kilometers (approximately 9.3 miles) wide, travelling at a velocity of 15 kilometers per second. New research, however, indicates the asteroid may have been much bigger<\/a>\u2014almost twice as large. New geological evidence shows that the crater is larger than previously thought, and based on those measurements, the asteroid was likely about 20 to 25 kilometers wide, and travelled at a velocity of 15 to 20 kilometers per second. That’s larger than the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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The Velveteen Rabbit was always more than just a children’s book<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the children’s story The Velveteen Rabbit, a little boy receives a stuffed rabbit for Christmas. From a wise old toy, the rabbit learns that when a child loves you for a long time, you become Real. But when the boy gets sick, the doctor orders the rabbit to be burned. The rabbit cries a tear, and from the tear grows a flower, and out of the flower steps a fairy, who transforms him into a real rabbit. Children are aware that the lives of their toys are imaginary<\/a>, the author believed \u2013 what they lack are the barriers that will be erected in adolescence between imagined realities and material ones. The story is also seen by some as an elegy for the author’s daughter, who perhaps grew up too fast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The man who invented standup comedy, over four hundred years ago<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It’s the summer of 1599, and a stand-up artist has just come onstage in London at the Curtain. He paces downstage, an arresting presence, visibly atypical, numinously strange. The crowd looking on knows already that this bristling figure isn\u2019t going to be like the other clowns they\u2019ve seen on the Curtain stage. He doesn\u2019t do jigs or pratfalls. He doesn\u2019t smile. He doesn\u2019t offer winks or reassurances. And he doesn\u2019t intend to make this easy, for himself or anyone else<\/a>. But these 2,000 paying customers must also know that Robert Armin, a.k.a. Snuff the Clown, has something else to offer. They are here, after all, for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What it\u2019s like to act in a Call of Duty game<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For cinematic scenes in big titles such as Call of Duty, the Last of Us and Death Stranding, actors now wear full performance-capture body suits \u2013 sort of like Lycra body gloves \u2013 which record their every movement. \u201cI\u2019ve been asked to play more than one general,\u201d says actor Glenn Moreshower, who plays hard guy military chief, General Shepard<\/a>, \u201cbut this is the only time I\u2019ve done it wearing a leotard.\u201d According to him, however, the biggest issue is the high-definition camera he has to wear at all times, which is fixed to a tripod on every actor\u2019s helmet, pointing into their faces to capture every micro-expression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A scientist talks about his research into shark attacks<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Gavin Naylor talks about his work creating a national database of shark attacks: “The impetus for the file dates back to the Second World War. In 1945, Japanese torpedoes hit the USS Indianapolis<\/em> as it was cruising toward the Philippines, sending about 800 sailors into the water, where several dozen, and possibly as many as 100, were eaten by sharks. Sailors were as frightened of sharks as they were of being torpedoed<\/a>. So the US Navy started funding research for potential shark repellents such as pardaxin, a substance a fish in the Red Sea emits, which seems to protect it from sharks. Eventually, scientists realized they needed to better understand what situations cause sharks to bite humans.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why do zebras have those colorful stripes?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Why do zebras have such striking, conspicuous, black & white stripes? This >150-yr-old mystery, puzzled over by Darwin & many others before him, still isn\u2019t solved. But one hypothesis is in the lead. Hint: it's not predator confusion, thermoregulation, or camouflage (1\/9) pic.twitter.com\/Q1UEMwztaT<\/a><\/p>— Kaia Tombak (@kaiatombak) November 4, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote>