Today I Learned

[pinball1970]

Arctic huskies are durable, from a documentary I saw. I will try and find something concrete in terms of a citation

 

[Hornbein]

I'd love a citation.

It was something I read maybe 50 years ago. I think it was a biography of Geronimo.

 

[PeterDonis]

American Indians are SO much faster than cheetahs.

Cheetahs can't run fast for very long. The general strategy of hunter-gatherer humans when pursuing game animals was not to outrun them, but to follow them and wait for them to get tired. In other words, greater endurance, not greater speed.

I'd love a citation.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-024-01876-x

 

[DaveC426913]

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-024-01876-x

Thanks. Pity it's behind a paywall.

 

[phinds]

Cheetahs can't run fast for very long. The general strategy of hunter-gatherer humans when pursuing game animals was not to outrun them, but to follow them and wait for them to get tired. In other words, greater endurance, not greater speed.

Yes, and had he said "hunt them down" I would have agreed. He said "chase" them down. I take "chase" to imply running.

 

[PeterDonis]

I take "chase" to imply running.

"Chase" doesn't necessarily mean "outrun". I think "chase them down" is perfectly consistent with the endurance running strategy described in the paper I referenced (and which I have seen described in other books and articles). Part of the strategy is to keep the animal scared so the animal keeps running and wears itself out; "chase" can describe that.

 

[PeterDonis]

Pity it's behind a paywall.

Yes, unfortunately I couldn't find a preprint or open access copy.

 

[Hornbein]

For training some tribes would have a man jog fifty miles or so, then after another a few hours another man would set out to chase/track him down. Geronimo was smart so he'd skip the tracking and go direct to passes that the other man had to use and pick up the trail there.

Samuel Coleridge would walk thirty miles to get his mail. Today in Bali everyone has motorscooters so the young people are impressed if I walk a mile. They have never heard of such a thing.

 

[DaveC426913]

They have never heard of such a thing.

Called a "shanks pony", IIRC.

 

[jbriggs444]

Righhhtttt ... American Indians are SO much faster than cheetahs.

Winners never cheat. And cheetahs never win.

 

[collinsmark]

Winners never cheat. And cheetahs never win.

Oh, man. Where's that groan emoji we've been asking for.

 

[pinball1970]

Oh, man. Where's that groan emoji we've been asking for.

I think a @phinds wolf is required.

 

[phinds]

"Chase" doesn't necessarily mean "outrun". I think "chase them down" is perfectly consistent with the endurance running strategy described in the paper

No argument that that is a valid use, but it's just not the one I thought of right off.

 

[jbriggs444]

Oh, man. Where's that groan emoji we've been asking for.

I keep hoping for a dad badge.

 

[Tom.G]

American Indians used to chase down game like this, before they got horses.

I'd love a citation.

Thanks. Pity it's behind a paywall.

A bit of research found a page with links to much supporting information for the article. About 2/3 of the way down this page:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-024-01876-x#auth-Eug_ne-Morin-Aff1-Aff2

Cheers,
Tom

p.s. The trick is to follow the link to the Author(s), where there is often much supporting documentation.

 

[symbolipoint]

T.I.L. --- Maritime Work Songs were or still are called "Sea Shanty"; the plural naturally being "Sea Shanties".

The part of the terminology "Shanty" comes from Chanter, a french word related to "sing".

I knew of a couple of these, and when reading the "Sea Shanty" part of the descriptions my mind just moved past that and I only focused on the music. Suddenly the terminology gives much clearer meaning to this type of music.

 

[Orodruin]

T.I.L. --- Maritime Work Songs were or still are called "Sea Shanty"; the plural naturally being "Sea Shanties".

The part of the terminology "Shanty" comes from Chanter, a french word related to "sing".

I knew of a couple of these, and when reading the "Sea Shanty" part of the descriptions my mind just moved past that and I only focused on the music. Suddenly the terminology gives much clearer meaning to this type of music.

The word chant also exists in English. Also with the same root (ultimately tracing back to the Latin cantare - to sing).

 

[haushofer]

T.I.L. --- Maritime Work Songs were or still are called "Sea Shanty"; the plural naturally being "Sea Shanties".

The part of the terminology "Shanty" comes from Chanter, a french word related to "sing".

I knew of a couple of these, and when reading the "Sea Shanty" part of the descriptions my mind just moved past that and I only focused on the music. Suddenly the terminology gives much clearer meaning to this type of music.

In Dutch we call these choirs also "Shanty koren". They're quite popular among older men :P

 

[symbolipoint]

T. I. L., a couple of words, seeming to mean the same thing:
Bowdlerization, and Expurgation
This is what some literary, dramatic, and performance artists/writers will do to make part of their work less objectionable for women and children (or for other people having sensitivities).

I had known of the concept for a while but never had known the vocabulary for this kind of treatment.

 

[Hornbein]

T. I. L., a couple of words, seeming to mean the same thing:
Bowdlerization, and Expurgation
This is what some literary, dramatic, and performance artists/writers will do to make part of their work less objectionable for women and children (or for other people having sensitivities).

I had known of the concept for a while but never had known the vocabulary for this kind of treatment.

Thomas Bowdler immortalized himself by daring to publish an expurgated version of Shakespeare.

 

[pinball1970]

T.I.L. Iconodiagnosis is a process of medical analysis that looks for clinical signs of medical disorders and diseases in artwork.

I was aware of paintings by Rubens which had women with breast disease.

This today

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-11-experts-michelangelo-depicted-breast-cancer.html

A few others here.

https://epos.myesr.org/poster/esr/ecr2011/C-0504/results

 

[DaveC426913]

My first reaction was, of course, how does anyone know they're painting accurately? Surely, it's largely fiction.

"This Flemish painter is one of the main Baroque artists, who belonged to realism style in painting. The realist painter aims at painting everything the eye can see. Particularly, the female breast was constantly depicted in his pictures."

I did not realize realism literally meant "paint what you see".

 

[pinball1970]

My first reaction was, of course, how does anyone know they're painting accurately? Surely, it's largely fiction.

"This Flemish painter is one of the main Baroque artists, who belonged to realism style in painting. The realist painter aims at painting everything the eye can see. Particularly, the female breast was constantly depicted in his pictures."

I did not realize realism literally meant "paint what you see".

No those guys wanted to represent life, that is why Leonardo was so keen on anatomy, if he knew what was underneath the skin he could represent it better on canvas. That did not change until the 19th Century with guys like Van Gogh.

Impressive that those old masters could paint a breast showing a slight tumor, puckering and distortion due to the underlying mass twisting and pulling the breast up and or to the side.
So accurate that modern Oncologists can make a decent diagnosis.
They had a helping hand with some back ground info on the subjects, whether they died or survived for months or years after.

 

[BillTre]

Don't forget Van Gogh's missing ear.
Don't paint what you don't see.

 

[pinball1970]

T.I.L. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-arecibo-observatory.html

"In December 2020, Arecibo's reflector dish collapsed after some of its support cables snapped, leading the National Science Foundation (NSF) to decommission the observatory......

According to the report, the collapse was due to weakened infrastructure caused by long-term zinc creep-induced failure in the telescope's cable sockets and previous damage caused by Hurricane Maria."

Used in the film "Contact."

 

[Hornbein]

I looked into it at the time. The telescope wasn't exciting anymore so they couldn't get the funds to maintain it. Toward the end it could go at any time so it was too dangerous to maintain at all.

"In December 2020, Arecibo's reflector dish collapsed after some of its support cables snapped, leading the National Science Foundation (NSF) to decommission the observatory......

The reflector dish was dug out of the mountains so it couldn't collapse. It will be there for decades if not centuries. The detector pod was suspended over the dish with cables. It crashed down into the dish when the cables snapped. Fortunately for voyeurs it happened during the day and a drone caught the initial cable parting.

 

[DaveC426913]

Fortunately for voyeurs it happened during the day and a drone caught the initial cable parting.

Somebody was pretty prescient having that drone in the air at just the right time.

 

[skyshrimp]

TIL, microplastics have been detected in human brains.

https://www.psu.edu/news/research/s...ormation-likely-affecting-weather-and-climate

 

[Hornbein]

TIL, microplastics have been detected in human brains.

https://www.psu.edu/news/research/s...ormation-likely-affecting-weather-and-climate

Who knows? It could be an improvement.

 

[Hornbein]

TIL that Russian composer Mussorgsky's first name was Modest.

 

[pinball1970]

TIL that Russian composer Mussorgsky's first name was Modest.

I always thought it was Pronounced Mow-dest (see python below) but it is simply Modest as we would use as an adjective.

Monty Python Decomposing composers 2.23 Michael Palin pronunciation

 

[pinball1970]

43 monkeys bred for research escape from a lab in South Carolina

https://phys.org/news/2024-11-monkeys-south-carolina-lab-ceo.html

“The Rhesus macaques made a break for it Wednesday after an employee at the Alpha Genesis facility in Yemassee didn't fully lock a door as she fed and checked on them, officials said.”

Not the first time.

"In 2018, the U.S. Department of Agriculture fined Alpha Genesis $12,600 in part after officials said 26 primates escaped from the Yemassee facility in 2014 and an additional 19 got out in 2016."

 

[Borg]

South Carolina

 

[pinball1970]

South Carolina

corrected

 

[Hornbein]

Alpha Genesis

They trying to breed a new human race?