{"id":267843,"date":"2024-11-15T09:38:27","date_gmt":"2024-11-15T14:38:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/?p=267843"},"modified":"2024-12-06T10:21:52","modified_gmt":"2024-12-06T15:21:52","slug":"the-us-was-built-on-control-of-the-bird-poop-supply","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2024\/11\/15\/the-us-was-built-on-control-of-the-bird-poop-supply\/","title":{"rendered":"The US was built on control of the bird poop supply"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From Science News<\/a>: “In December 1855 and January 1856, a trio of vessels set sail from the United States to Jarvis and Baker islands, coral atolls in the Pacific Ocean. The ships carried representatives from the American Guano Company and a guano expert tasked with examining the quality of the islands\u2019 bird poop. After estimating the quantity of guano available and taking samples, the entourage claimed the islands in the name of the United States. That move marked the country\u2019s first effort to acquire territory overseas. U.S. ownership of those islands became official in July 1856 with passage of the Guano Islands Act. That act gave the country \u201cpermission\u201d to claim sovereignty over any allegedly uninhabited or unclaimed territory to secure access to guano, a prized fertilizer for American tobacco, cotton and wheat fields.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dante cast her as his guide in the Divine Comedy<\/em>. But who was Beatrice Portinari?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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From JSTOR Daily<\/a>: “She was the great love of the Early Renaissance Italian poet Dante Alighieri. He adored her so much that he cast her as his divine guide to the celestial spheres of heaven in the last book of the Divine Comedy.<\/em> But his would always be an unrequited love: she was promised to someone else, and so was he. Her name was Beatrice Portinari. Beatrice Portinari belonged to a family of bankers and politicians; her father was Folco Portinari, a prior of Florence. Her family\u2019s upper-class social status allowed her to marry into another rich Florentine set. She wed another wealthy banker, Simone de Bardi, in an arranged marriage. Dante\u2019s wife was an Italian woman named Gemma Donati, though he never wrote a single poem about her.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note<\/strong>: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Scientists believe that consciousness may hide in our brain\u2019s electric fields<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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From Scientific American<\/a>: “Neuroscientists explain perception, memory, cognition and even consciousness itself as products of billions of these tiny neurons busily firing their tiny \u201cspikes\u201d of voltage inside our brain. These energetic spikes not only convey things like pain and other sensory information to our conscious mind, but they are also in theory able to explain every detail of our complex consciousness. At least in principle. The details of this \u201cneural code\u201d have yet to be worked out. While neuroscientists have long focused on spikes travelling throughout brain cells, \u201cephaptic\u201d field effects may really be the primary mechanism for consciousness and cognition. These effects, resulting from the electric fields produced by neurons rather than their synaptic firings, may play a leading role in our mind\u2019s workings.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hi everyone! Mathew Ingram here. I am able to continue writing this newsletter in part because of your financial help and support, which you can do either <\/em>through my Patreon<\/em><\/a> or by upgrading your subscription to a monthly contribution. I enjoy gathering all of these links and sharing them with you, but it does take time, and your support makes it possible for me to do that. And I appreciate it, believe me!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joe Martin was an orangutan actor who appeared in more than 50 silent films<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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From Wikipedia<\/a>: “Joe Martin was a captive orangutan who appeared in at least 50 American films of the silent era, including approximately 20 comedy shorts, several serials, two Tarzan movies, Rex Ingram’s melodrama Black Orchid<\/em> and its remake Trifling Women<\/em>, the Max Linder feature comedy Seven Years Bad Luck<\/em>, and the Irving Thalberg-produced Merry-Go-Round<\/em>. Joe Martin was human-acculturated and was characterized as human-like during his life. Upon entering adolescence, Joe Martin began to physically attack humans and other animals, including studio staff. At least three of these cases were apparent defenses of a woman, child, or animal. He staged major zoo escapes at least twice, once releasing the wolves and the elephant on the way out, and once relieving a police officer of his gun.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did scientists revive the extinct quogga or just breed a less stripey zebra?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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From the WSJ<\/a>: “If it looks like a quagga, gallops like a quagga and barks like a quagga, then it probably is a quagga. Or is it?Scientists and conservationists here say they\u2019ve brought a zebralike mammal back from the dead, giving the quagga a major win over the more-famous Woolly mammoth and Dodo bird in the global race to bring animals back from extinction. But not everyone is celebrating. Detractors of the nearly four-decade quest insist it has produced nothing more than a skin-deep knockoff. \u201cThey\u2019re effectively just making a zebra less stripey,\u201d said Douglas McCauley, a professor of ecology and evolution at the University of California, Santa Barbara.Quaggas were once endemic to southern Africa, but aggressive hunting decimated their population and the last known quagga died at the Amsterdam zoo in 1883.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The magic of hydrophobic sand<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Hydrophobic sand, also known as magic sand, is created from ordinary beach sand that is dyed a variety of colors and then coated with a hydrophobic compound. pic.twitter.com\/SWU0kK3KTN<\/a><\/p>— Wonder of Science (@wonderofscience) November 5, 2024<\/a><\/blockquote>