Research Suggests Dodos Might Have Been Quite Intelligent

New research suggests that the dodo, an extinct bird whose name has entered popular culture as a symbol of stupidity, was actually fairly smart. The work, published today in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, finds that the overall size of the dodo’s brain in relation to its body size was on par with its closest living relatives: pigeons—birds whose ability to be trained implies they’re no dummies. 

The dodo (Raphus cucullatus) was a large, flightless bird that lived on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, where they were last seen alive in 1662. When sailors discovered the island  in the late 1500s, the dodo didn’t fear these new arrivals. That led to the birds being herded onto passing boats as an easy meal for passing sailors.

“Because of that behavior and invasive species that were introduced to the island, they disappeared in less than 100 years after humans arrived. Today, they are almost exclusively known for becoming extinct, and I think that’s why we’ve given them this reputation of being dumb,”said Eugenia Gold, the lead author of the paper, a research associate and recent graduate of the Museum’s Richard Gilder Graduate School, and an instructor in the Department of Anatomical Sciences at Stony Brook University.

Read how Gold managed to examine the brain of a long-extinct bird. 

Why Type Ia Supernovae Continue to Burn Bright

Three years after its explosion, a type Ia supernova continues to shine more brightly than expected, new research finds. The observations, made with the Hubble Space Telescope and published today in The Astrophysical Journal, suggest that powerful explosions like this one produce a heavy form of cobalt that gives the heat from nuclear decay an energy boost.

The work could help researchers pinpoint the parents of type Ia supernovae and reveal the mechanics behind these events. These particular types of stellar explosions are frequently used to measure distances to faraway galaxies, and have grown more important to the field in recent decades, after they were used to demonstrate that expansion of the universe is accelerating. But researchers still have many questions about the phenomenon.

“We still do not know exactly what type of star system explodes as a type Ia supernova or how the explosion takes place,“ said lead author Or Graur, a research associate in the American Museum of Natural History’s Department of Astrophysics and a postdoctoral researcher at New York University. "A lot of research has gone into these two questions, but the answers are still elusive.”

Current research suggests that type Ia supernovae begin in binary star systems, where two stars orbit one another, and where at least one star is a white dwarf. The explosion is the result of a thermonuclear chain reaction, which produces vast quantities of heavy elements. The light that researchers see when a type Ia supernova explodes comes from the radioactive decay of these elements, notably when an isotope of nickel (56Ni) decays into an isotope of cobalt (56Co) and then into a stable isotope of iron (56Fe).

Read the full story on the Museum blog. 

History Research Frozen in Place? Break Through that Ice Jam at History Hub!

Stuck on a research question?  Need advice on how to get started with genealogical research?

Now you can ask them on the History Hub.

History Hub is a pilot project, connecting experts at the National Archives, researchers, and the public with discussion boards, blogs, profiles, and other interactive tools to offer the public a one-stop shop for crowdsourcing information.

The History Hub is a limited six-month pilot project so that we can test the platform for its use and usefulness as a crowdsourcing platform. 

Give it a try and ask a question at historyhub.archives.gov.

Looking south across Beaverlodge Valley from Experimental Farm. Beaverlodge, Alta., c. 1927.

Credit: Canada. Dept. of Interior / Library and Archives Canada / PA-040489

(via Archives Search - Library and Archives Canada)

The Afghan box camera—a homemade wooden device known as the kamra-e-faoree, meaning “instant camera”—has been used to preserve memories in Afghanistan for generations. It is part of the local landscape, with street photographers dotting city thoroughfares. It is itself a part of Afghan history, having been briefly banned by the Taliban, but these days, the box camera is in danger of disappearing. Fewer and fewer people know how to make and use the traditional tool, which uses no film but can both capture and develop an image.

Lukas Birk and Sean Foley, an Austrian artist and an Irish ethnographer, respectively, had discovered the box cameras while visiting Afghanistan on research trips. They learned that the devices, which came to the region in the early 20th century, were being replaced by their digital descendants among photographers who could afford it—or lying unused by photographers who couldn’t afford to refill on photographic supplies. The art of the karma-e faoree had been passed down through families, but Birk and Foley thought that this generation was going to be the last.

They were both struck by the importance of the cameras in local history and the poignancy of the medium’s persistence, and were also interested in the potential stories to be told when Afghans were photographed by other Afghans.

But the photographs produced by the cameras were the real draw. “We’re both visual people,” said Birk in an email, “and box camera photography is a feast for the eyes.”

So, in 2011, funded by a Kickstarter project, the two traveled to Afghanistan to begin research on a project about the Afghan box camera. The website they produced from that trip features box-camera tutorials, profiles of itinerant photographers and examples of box-camera photography and traditional hand-tinting from Afghanistan and the surrounding region. But the 2011 trip was not the end of their exploration of the box camera. Birk and Foley have started a Kickstarter page to raise money for another trip to Afghanistan, slated for this spring, with plans to produce a book with the additional material.

“Right now we can still talk about it as a living form of photography, maybe for another couple of years, before it will completely disappear,” Birk said.

PhD. Bernard Camber, PhD. William C. Dement, et al. Understanding Human Behavior: An Illustrated Guide to Successful Human Relationships- Volume 1. Columbia House; New York. 1974. (pg. 40)

Classic Maya "Collapse" Did Not Happen, Say Researchers

The Classic period Maya civilization did not really collapse, say some scholar-researchers. It was essentially transformed through societal reorganization, much of which manifests itself to this day through the modern Maya population. This suggestion challenges some long-held views by a broad spectrum of scientists and scholars who have theorized that the ancient Classic Maya civilization experienced a dramatic collapse between about 800 and 1,100 C.E.  

In the paper, The Last Gasp: Demystifying the “Collapse” of the Terminal Classic Lowland Maya, published in the premier issue of AnthroJournal, author Elizabeth Votruba presents the arguments against collapse, suggesting that a different, more contextualized and holistic approach needs to be taken in researching, analyzing and interpreting the evidence of the ancient Maya existence and environment. Read more.

Dullahan

Aswang

I personally knew a very nice Aswang. Unfortunately due to people messing with what they shouldn’t, Halima died of basilisk poisoning. It was quite heartbreaking.