Curiosities

[bodysong]

The science of heat domes and how drought and climate change make them worse

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/07/10/heat-dome-heat-wave-faq/

Every man, woman, child, dog, cat, robot, has their very own motor vehicle.
Vroom, vroom!

Jul 9, 2021

The Heatwave caused by the madness of capitalist reason
(grow, grow, grow, liberate carbon, liberate carbon, liberate carbon)
did a number on people (73 known dead), the snow on our volcanoes,
and now marine life in the Pacific Northwest. KOMO reports that
"some of the clams and oysters cooked to death in the intense heat,"
and "shellfish farmers are now assessing how bad the damage was."
As time progresses, the scale of the damage caused by the three-day
heat dome is becoming clearer. For example, a Canadian marine biologist,
Chris Harley, estimates that a stunning "1 billion small sea creatures—
including mussels, clams and snails—died during the heatwave in the Salish Sea."
The creatures were boiling to death in sea water. Picture that? Picture the end of times.

https://www.thestranger.com/slog/20...r-shellish-amazons-war-on-workers-intensifies

Arctic Polar Vortex, Heat Dome, and Ye Olde L.A. Smog Dome

 

[bodysong]

Executive roller coaster ride.

He would like to thank his desperate, expendable, slave labor pool.

Van Jones, founder of Dream Corps and chef José Andrés are invited to celebrate
the slow death of the Earth, and NASA.

 

[bodysong]

Fire-breathing American dragon clouds and a fungus that is killing Americans

(Firenado is so pre-Pandemic)

Please do not import this disease, or any mutated forms of it, into the USA

(Does this look like Captain Trips, to you ? reference: Stephen King's "The Stand")

China reports its first death of a human from rare Monkey B virus

July 19, 2021

The victim, a 53-year-old veterinarian based in Beijing, was the first documented human
case of the virus in China.

According to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the man worked
in a research institute that specialized in nonhuman primate breeding and dissected two
dead monkeys in March. He experienced nausea, vomiting and fever a month later, and
died May 27.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/07/19/monkey-b-virus-china-human/

 

[bodysong]

September 27 In Labor History:
The Fall River BREAD RIOT!

- Erik Loomis
September 27, 2021

On September 27, 1875, striking textile workers in Fall River, Massachusetts, engaged
in a bread riot as the workers were forced to return to their job or face shipment to the
state's poor farm.

via Wonkette

 

[bodysong]

...looking more closely at their geographic distribution, the names seem to fall
naturally into two major groups. The first group is located in southern Britain
from the Scilly Isles/Cornwall in the west across to the Isle of Thanet, Kent,
in the east. Needless to say, such a southern group of Phoenician/Punic names
in Britain would obviously accord well with the often-noted textual hints of
Punic traders visiting pre-Roman southern Britain, primarily to obtain tin,
a rare metal that was certainly exported to the Continent and Mediterranean
from the Bronze Age onwards.(4) Indeed, in this context it is interesting to
observe that several of these potential Punic names are, in fact, located at
or close-by sites with links to the ancient tin trade and/or with evidence for
significant pre-Roman Mediterranean contacts, as is discussed in more detail
in the list below. The second group is located in the west, from Ireland up to
the Outer Hebrides in the far north-west. The significance of this concentration
of potential Punic island and coastal names is open to debate, although the
well-known archaeological evidence for copper mining in Bronze Age Ireland
is certainly worth noting (see further below), as is the find of a North African
Barbary ape skull from a probable third- to second-century BC context at
Navan Fort, Northern Ireland. The fragmentary surviving records of the later
fourth-century BC voyage of Pytheas of Massalia may also be relevant here too,
given that they indicate the presence of at least some Continental traders along
the west coast of Britain up to the area of the Hebrides and beyond by the
fourth century BC. (5)

...finally, it is interesting to note that a Punic origin has also been tentatively
suggested for three major island names in the region as well as a number of
more minor island and coastal names, the names in question being Britain,
Ireland and Thule. Needless to say, these suggestions are perhaps the most
contentious of all those outlined below, not least because Britain and Ireland
already have frequently cited Celtic etymologies, in a notable contrast to the
more local or regional names covered here, with Britain usually believed
to derive from a word meaning 'the people of the forms' or 'the tattooed people',
whilst Ireland (Éire) is often considered to mean 'the fat, or fertile, country'.

However, Broderick in particular has pointed out that these etymologies are not
wholly certain nor universally agreed upon, and neither are they totally without
linguistic issues; moreover, it might be wondered how plausible some of the
proposed meanings are as specific people-/country-names too (the use of tattooing
and body art was not, for example, confined or specific to the Britons, but seems
rather to have been fairly widespread in Iron Age Europe). In this light, it is intriguing
to observe that Phoenician/Punic etymologies are also available for both of these major
island-names, giving the ‘tin land’ (pretan, ‘tin’) for Britain (*Pritan-) and the
‘copper island’ (*’i: weriju:, ‘island of copper’) for Éire/Ireland (*Īweryon),
and that Richard Coates has argued that these suggestions cannot be casually
dismissed, especially in light of the likely presence of other Proto-Semitic/Punic
island- and coastal-names in the British Isles.

https://www.caitlingreen.org/2016/12/punic-names-britain.html

 

[bodysong]

from Aardman Animations Ltd, UK, maker of claymation creation, Wallace & Gromit
(introduction to the addictiveness of Wensleydale cheese), comes "Robbie the Reindeer:
The Lost Tribe" -American television recycling an old show.

A US major TV network airs this during "early evening hours."

(Since when, is learning the meaning of pain, part of a student's education ?)

More suitable, for people that prefer "edibles" over vaping.

(Then, again, a scene in this Black Friday TV special, features a distorted replication
of the confrontation between Anakin Skywalker after his recent conversion
to Sith Lord, and Obi-Wan Kenobi. In this version, Padmé Amidala defends
her recently betrothed. Star Wars, films for all ages, no floods of blood, or gore.
Dramatic deaths, of all kinds. An artificial moon that destroys whole planets!)

Something a bit more consumer friendly was offered around the same time-
that Robbie the Reindeer made his debut - "Olive, the Other Reindeer."
(author, Vivian Walsh)

For contrast, something recent-

Meanwhile, a creation similar to My Little Pony is serving duty in a Macy's department
store TV ad. Just happened to be an eye catching first- a "ballooon" puppet, much like
a puppeteered famous "war horse" used in an award winning play, featured in the Macy's
pre- Christmas Thanksgiving Day NYC parade.

Tiptoe, the Macy's Parade's New Reindeer - "Tiptoe and the Flying Machine"

Oddly, both reindeer need machines to assist them, to fly.

 

[bodysong]

bodysong comment -

If you ask an American about a thick fog, that hardly allows you to see
your own hand, in front of your face - some might reply
"fog as thick as pea soup."

As you might guess, pea soup does not have a clear broth. Not made from freshly picked
green peas. Made from dried peas, and the reconstituted peas disintergrate into a paste.

If you are faced with American "pea soup fog," it is not a good idea
to hop in the car and drive, or take a stroll near the harbor or shoreline.

(Mystery movies often use fog machines, to reproduce the effects of pea soup fog.)

"Pea soup fog" has a much less pleasant association for people that live in England.

12,000 in London, were killed by smog. It would take almost 65 years for experts
to figure out why.

December 20, 2017

The Great Smog of London descended upon the city on Dec. 5, 1952

A strange fog, yellow-black in color and thicker than even the native residents
of the always foggy London had never seen before. The smell of the fog was
different too, a smoky, chemical smell. People stuck outside as it appeared found
themselves gasping for air, unable to breathe the thick, almost opaque air.

Though they didn’t know it yet, the residents of London were experiencing what has
come to be known as one of the deadliest environmental disasters to date.

The Great Smog of London, a mixture of smoke and fog, was the result
of a series of several unfortunate coincidences.

Pea Soup Smog

1.) Several days prior to the great smog, a cold front had moved in
which caused Londoners to use their coal-burning stoves more often
than they had been.

2.) Dec. 5 was a particularly still day. Rather than the usual 5-10 mile per hour gusts
that the riverside city usually experienced, there was almost no wind, causing the smoke
from the chimneys to linger above the streets rather than be blown away.

3.) On top of the chill and the stillness -the city was directly under an atmospheric
anti-cyclone, which creates a circle of circulating air with an area of dead space
in the center. The anticyclone above London effectively created a bubble around the city
that prevented fresh air from getting in and the smog from escaping.

4.) High levels of sulfuric acid in the smog.

How exactly the sulfuric acid found its way into the air that day remained a mystery
for almost 65 years. It wasn’t until November 2016 that a global team of scientists
announced that they had finally solved the mystery.

The scientists claimed that the sulfur dioxide entered the atmosphere mostly through
coal burning.

“But how sulfur dioxide was turned into sulfuric acid was unclear.
Our results showed that this process was facilitated by nitrogen dioxide,
another co-product of coal burning, and occurred initially on natural fog.”

https://allthatsinteresting.com/great-smog-of-london

Hello ? London had cars in 1952! Cold weather concentrates car exhaust in streets.

American Smog

Walk in Los Angeles ? Everyone has a motor vehicle. That is a whole lot of car exhaust.
Air pollution - volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides.

Smog Alerts in California, Air Quality Reports, Truly Bad Air Days

Before whole California towns were burned down, and enormous forest fires
caused smoke to fill the air, California's air pollution has periodically appeared
on the news. At times, California has areas trapped under a bubble, by weather
conditions. Health advisory conditions.

 

[bodysong]

The pig's heart installed inside a human being, shall not be rejected by his body.

A human being travels through altered evolution states inside the womb.
Not much difference between a pig fetus and a human fetus, at a certain stage.

We have gills, as fetuses, in the womb. Do we have potential to grow gills,
if the Earth is flooded ?

Tip of the hat, to the Onion - Cat's penis spines

National Geographic - Why Human Penises Lost Their Spines

March 11, 2011

DNA study offers clues to "impenetrable mystery" of evolution, expert says.

Men have lost the DNA code that once made human penises spiny,
according to a new analysis of the human genome.

But the "penile spine enhancer" code disappeared from human genes
before our common ancestor split into modern humans and Neanderthals
about 700,000 years ago, said study co-author Gill Bejerano, a developmental
biologist at Stanford University in California.

( Sperm Wars! Human beings started to cultivate crops, and it changed mating habits ? )

"...most women today are monogamous, and the males "are not just present
during the competitive act of fertilization—they establish long-term relationships
with females," Kingsley said.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...-humans-men-penises-spines-dna-genome-science

Replacement heart reproduction (continued)

The latest promising update in humans' quest to harvest life-saving organs from our
four-legged, porcine friends saw a team of surgeons at the University of Maryland
Medical Center successfully implant a heart taken from a genetically modified pig
into the body of 57-year-old Maryland resident David Bennett.

I do not desire "Franken Food genetically modified with animal genes, reptile genes,
fish genes. But, being human, I would accept a genetically altered pig's heart to avoid
certain death.

 

[bodysong]

Travel

Along the coast of Brittany, a search for our prehistoric ancestors

- Nicklin @RoadTripRedux

For just about everyone now on Earth, Neolithic constructions such as these
are where it all began, according to some philosophers and psychologists —
the birth of modern consciousness. Until the fixed settlements of Neolithic times,
the way human brains processed information might naturally have been less analytical
linear, reductive — and, instead, more associative, intuitive, holistic.

That’s the educated guess based on archaeological evidence.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/01/21/brittany-france-prehistory-carnac-alignments/