@ladykrampus / ladykrampus.tumblr.com
An 18th century beauty. This was one of the church’s I studied for the History exam last year. Built in 1754 from Portland stone it sits right at the peak of the islands summit. Pevsner points out that its possible that this church escaped the trends of the time by being in Dorset; its likely that few London architects brought their style down to this area at that time, and for me that is what makes it special.
Millions of years ago, our primate ancestors turned from trees and shrubs to search for food on the ground. In human evolution, that has made all the difference. The shift toward a grass-based diet marked a significant step toward the diverse eating habits that became a key human characteristic, and would have made these early humans more mobile and adaptable to their environment.
New evidence just published by a research team led by a Johns Hopkins University scientist shows that this significant shift took place about 400,000 years earlier than experts previously thought, providing a clearer picture of a time of rapid change in conditions that shaped human evolution.
Naomi E. Levin, the lead author of the report just published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said the diet shift is one of an array of changes that took place during the Pliocene era – 2.6 million to 5.3 million years ago – Read more.
ugh mont saint michel is honestly one of the most beautiful places i’ve ever been and i need to go back asaaaap
This gold diadem was found by Leonard Woolley in one of the simpler graves in the cemetery at Ur. A small wooden coffin containing the badly preserved bones of a very young child lay at the bottom of a shaft. The child was wearing the diadem around its head. Bowls made of silver, copper, calcite and limestone were also found.
Two of the three gold disc ornaments are formed from rings separated by finely bent strips of gold. The same technique is used to form the central rosettes. The other disc consists of four concentric gold rings inlaid with lapis lazuli and carnelian. All appear to have been attached to a chain of sets of four long beads of gold, lapis lazuli and carnelian.
Deposits of metal ore are not found in Mesopotamia itself, but only in the surrounding mountains. Metal was therefore highly prized, with gold among the most precious. Stone is also rare in southern Mesopotamia, with many coloured varieties coming from further east. Lapis lazuli, the exotic blue stone, was mined in Afghanistan.
Hundreds of you sent in questions for my live conversation with three astronauts and NASA’s chief scientist on Tuesday. Thanks! The most common question was: “What happens when you get your period in space?”
I didn’t end up asking this question because
a) the question itself has a lot of historical baggage b) the answer is pretty boring
But because people seemed genuinely curious, I decided to answer it here.
In the early days of space flight, menstruation was part of the argument that women shouldn’t become astronauts.
Some claimed (1) that menstruation would effect a woman’s ability, and blamed several plane crashes on menstruating women. Studies in the 1940s (2,3) showed this was not the case. Female pilots weren’t impaired by their periods. But the idea wouldn’t die. In 1964, researchers from the Women in Space Program (4) still suggested (without evidence) that putting “a temperamental psychophysiologic human” (i.e. a hormonal woman) together with a “complicated machine” was a bad idea.
Others raised concerns about hypothetical health risks. They feared that microgravity might increase the incidence of “retrograde menstruation.” Blood might flow up the fallopian tubes into the abdomen, causing pain and other health problems. No one actually did any experiments to see if this really would be a problem, so there wasn’t any data to support or refute these fears.
Advocates for women in space argued that there had been a lot of unknowns when humans first went to space, but they sent men up anyway. Rhea Seddon, one of the first six women astronauts at NASA, recalled during an interview:
We said, “How about we just consider it a non-problem until it becomes a problem? If anybody gets sick in space you can bring us home. Then we’ll deal with it as a problem, but let’s consider it a non-problem.”
Just to give you a sense of the culture surrounding female astronauts back then, here’s an excerpt of a 1971 NASA report about potential psychological problems in space. Researchers Nick Kanas and William Fedderson suggest there might be a place for women in space:
The question of direct sexual release on a long-duration space mission must be considered. Practical considerations (such as weight and expense) preclude men taking their wives on the first space flights. It is possible that a woman, qualified from a scientific viewpoint, might be persuaded to donate her time and energies for the sake of improving crew morale; however, such a situation might create interpersonal tensions far more dynamic than the sexual tensions it would release.
Kanas, now an emeritus professor of psychology at UCSF, told me this was tongue-in-cheek — part of a larger discussion about the problem of sexual desire in space (5). Still, it’s surprising this language was included in an official NASA memorandum. Even advocates for women in space were caught up in this kind of talk. In a 1975 report for the RAND corporation, Glenda Callanen argues that women have the strength and intelligence to become astronauts. But here’s how she begins the report’s conclusion:
It seems inevitable that women are to be essential participants in space flight. Even if they were only to take on the less scientific parts of the space mission, or if they wished only to help “colonize” distant planets, their basic skills must still prepare them to perform countless new tasks.
In a culture where these statements were unremarkable, it’s easy to imagine that questions about menstruation weren’t purely motivated by scientific curiosity.
In 1983, 22 years after Alan Shepard became the first American to go to space, Sally Ride left earth’s atmosphere. She told an interviewer:
I remember the engineers trying to decide how many tampons should fly on a one-week flight; they asked, “Is 100 the right number?” “No. That would not be the right number.”
The same thing that happens on Earth! In the last three decades of female space flight, periods in space have been normal — no menstrual problems in microgravity.
Notes:
Aboriginal society has preserved memories of Australia’s coastline dating back more than 7,000 years. That’s the conclusion that University of the Sunshine Coast Professor of Geography Patrick Nunn reached in a paper published in Australian Geographer.
The study looks at Aboriginal stories from 21 places around Australia’s coastline, each describing a time when sea levels were significantly lower than today. Professor Nunn said present sea levels in Australia were reached 7,000 years ago and as such any stories about the coastline stretching much further out to sea had to pre-date that time.
“These stories talk about a time when the sea started to come in and cover the land, and the changes this brought about to the way people lived – the changes in landscape, the ecosystem and the disruption this caused to their society,” he said. Read more.
A silver decorated double barrel miquelet pistol originating from Spain, circa 1690.
A Roman copy of a Greek original.
Marsyas was a Phrygian Satyr who first composed tunes for the flute. He obtained his instrument from Athena, who had invented the device but discarded it in her displeasure over the bloating effect it had on her cheeks. Later, in hubristic pride over the new-found music, Marsyas dared challenge the god Apollo to a contest. The Satyr inevitably lost, when, in the second round, the god demanded they play their instruments upside down–a feat ill-suited to the flute. As punishment for his presumption, Apollo had Marsyas tied to a tree and flayed him alive. The rustic gods in their pity then transformed him into a mountain stream.
A dramatic image from the 2012 restoration of the Bernard Family Hall of North American Mammals.
Watch a video about the restoration of the taxidermic mounts:
AMNH/R.Mickens
Istanbul (Not Constantinople)…. wait. Yes, Constantinople!
The map of Asia Minor was long enough that I was not able to get a good photo of it. Snippets it is!
Book: A hand-book for travellers in the Ionian Islands, Greece, Turkey, Asia Minor, and Constantinople … including a description of Malta … London, J. Murray; [etc., etc.] 1845.
Muness Castle is located on the island of Unst, Shetland, off the north coast of Scotland. The castle is 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) east of the village of Uyeasound. Unst is Scotland’s most northerly inhabited island, and Muness is the most northerly fortified castle in Britain.
The castle was built from 1598 for Laurence Bruce of Cultmalindie, half-brother to Robert Stewart, 1st Earl of Orkney. Earl Robert was succeeded by his son Patrick in 1593. The building may have been constructed under the direction of Andrew Crawford, Earl Patrick’s master of works, who also oversaw construction of Scalloway Castle and the Earl’s Palace at Kirkwall, Orkney. In 1627 the castle burned down and was never fully repaired.
Unchain my heart! Er…book. This book once belonged to a chained library, until it was released from the bonds of literary servitude to grace our vault. Now it has a lovely home in a custom enclosure!
Made by a former student, the custom enclosure houses the book and its chain safely, leaving room at the top of the box for a recess in which the chain fits snugly. The top tray of the box has an extending piece that performs the double function of forming the top wall for the book and keeping the chain from bouncing about when the box is closed.
The Terror of the Hashashin,
In the 11th century a Nazari missionary named Hassan-i Sabbah began a small community of worshipers in the mountains of Northern Persia. A follower of a Shia Islamic group called the Isma'li, Sabbah was a very charismatic leader who organized a very large movement in a very short period of time. To accommodate his followers his movement occupied the fortress of Alamut. After a few decades, his followers occupied dozens of fortresses in Northern Iran.
Immediately Sabbah’s movement fell under assault as regional powers such as the Persians, the Fatimid Empire, and later the Crusaders saw them as heretics who constituted a political and military threat. As a result, Sabbah made intense training in warfare and combat a centerpiece of his religious teachings. His followers were trained to be elite soldiers and religious fanatics. Despite the militaristic flavor of his movement, Sabbah knew that a well orchestrated assassination or the proper application of intimidation could achieve much more than military power.
To complement his warriors, Sabbah founded the Order of Assassins, also known as the Hashashin because they often imbibed in the drug hashish. The assassins were required to be young, experts in hand to hand combat, religious fanatics, and also cold, calculating, and intelligent.
Over the next two centuries the Hashashin were the most feared assassins in the Middle East, Central Asia, and perhaps the known world. Targets were typically powerful men such as political leaders, generals, religious leaders, and Crusaders. One famous victim was the famed Egyptian Muslim leader named Saladin. Saladin survived two attempts on his life by the Hashashin. Throughout the rest of his life Saladin lived in terror and paranoia. In 1192 and Italian knight and nobleman named Conrad of Montferrat was elected as King of Jerusalem. Two days later he was stabbed to death by two Hashashin dressed as Christian monks. Most suspected that his rival, Richard the Lionheart, had hired the Hashashin to commit the deed. Another famous victim was Prince Edward Longshanks, future King of England featured in the film “Braveheart”. Prince Edward was badly wounded and forced to return home. Even the mere threat of murder by the Hashashin was enough to intimidate rulers to do their bidding. When the Seljuk Sultan Sanjar attempted to invade Hashashin territory, he awoke one morning to find a dagger with a threatening note stuck in his pillow. He then called off the invasion.
The terror of the Hashashin spread far and wide. Then in the 13th century the Hashashin messed with someone who was far worse than they. In 1253 the Hashashin attempted to assasinate Mongke Khan, the Fourth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire. Needless to say, the Mongols were not the sort to be intimidated, even by the feared Hashashin. Without pause the Mongols surrounded and stormed their many fortresses, ruthlessly slaughtering all Hashashin without mercy. In 1256 they destroyed the fortress of Alamut, the last bastion of the Hashashin. Those who survived the Mongol’s fury were tortured and beheaded, including the order’s last grandmaster Rukn al-Din Khurshah.
A Sawfish, Ms. Ludwig XV 4, by unknown creator, France ca. 13th century via J. Paul Getty Museum on Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain
