Picture Day Friday: One of Madagascar's Wacky Animals

What a graceful dancer. Madagascar's Verreaux's sifakas is dancing here in the Berenty Nature Reserve. It is a medium-sized primate in one of the lemur families. The fur is thick and silky and generally white with brown on the sides, top of the head, and on the arms. The face is black and hairless and the long tail is used as a balance when leaping from tree to tree. Its body is so highly adapted to an arboreal existence that on the ground its only means of locomotion is hopping (which is highly unusual).


[Image copyrighted by livescience.com.]


[Image copyrighted by Kevin Schafer of arkive.org.]

The Lost Treasures of the Library of Alexandria

The Library of Alexandria in Egypt has always been considered as one of the greatest libraries of the ancient world. "Oppression and fear of learning have obliterated almost all memories of ancient Alexandria," writes Carl Sagan in Cosmos. "Yet this place was once the brain and glory of the greatest city on the planet, the first true research institute in the history of the world." (Carl Sagan may be forgiven a lot, including his blindness towards the ancient, advanced civilizations of the East, namely, China and India.)

Scholars of Alexandria explored philosophy, literature, chemistry, biology, medicine, physics, astronomy, geography, mathematics, engineering, and history. "Science and scholarship had come of age [in Alexandria]," writes Sagan. Open-minded pursuit of knowledge for the sake of learning, questioning, refuting or digesting was the order of the day among the diverse peoples of the city. Encouraged by Alexander the Great, his namesake city, Alexandria became the center of learning, culture, and also commerce. The library also served as home to a host of international scholars, who were provided with research, travel, and lodging stipends for themselves and their families.

The Greek kings, who succeeded Alexander, were also serious about learning and research. The library consisted of research halls, a large dining hall, fountains and colonnades, botanical gardens, a zoo, dissecting rooms, an observatory, and meeting rooms where scholars could gather for critical discussion and debate. The library itself is known to have an acquisitions department and a cataloguing department located close to the stacks.

Of course, the heart of the library, as with any library, were the books. The original founders and succeeding directors combed the world's civilizations for books. They bought up libraries, copied books that could not be bought, wrested books from personal libraries, and yes, also stole ones that were otherwise unavailable. The scholars also produced new works that were An estimated half a millions books, in the form of papyrus scrolls, were shelved there.

Thus, the destruction of the Library of Alexandria led to an immeasurable loss of knowledge that affects us to this day. We know some of what we lost—some of it took nearly two thousand years to rediscover—some we don't know how to figure out, and most of it is gone forever. Imagine what we could've known of history, astronomy, biology, and engineering had the texts survived!

[Credit for these images goes to Living Moon.]

The Mystery of the Anglo-Saxon King Canute

Bones! Bones! Bones! This post starts a series of three posts on skeletal remains discovered of England's kings: Canute, Richard III, and Alfred the Great.

This post will cover Canute, the 11th century Anglo-Saxon king. According to the Medieval News, forensic scientists will examine "the skeletal remains of Anglo-Saxon royalty that have lain in wooden ‘mortuary chests’ at Winchester Cathedral for more than 350 years." According to the Daily Mail, "the [mortuary] chests have been placed in the Lady Chapel to allow researchers to begin examinations without removing them from consecrated ground." Detective archaeologists from Bristol University will use DNA techniques to identify the remains. The remains of some of the Anglo-Saxon royalty were originally buried at Winchester Cathedral, but their remains were scattered by looters who ransacked it during England's Civil War. They were then willy-nilly stuffed into these chests and reburied at the cathedral.

Canute, one of England's great Anglo-Saxon kings, started life as a Viking, known as Knud in Danish and Knut in Norwegian. He participated in multiple raids of England at the turn of the last millennium, but in 1016, he won a decisive victory over Edmund the Ironside. Shortly thereafter, Edmund died, leaving Canute as the sole king of England. In 1018, King Harald of Denmark died and through familial relations, Canute became king of Denmark, too. Norway fell next, and by mid 1020s, Scotland had fallen, too.

Thus, Canute was the first king to rule over a united British Isles free from internal and external strife. As a result, trade, art, literature, and religious life thrived in the 20 years of peaceful reign that followed. But all these stellar achivements is not why Canute is remembered in history.

He is remembered for these words uttered while he sat on a throne with the waves lapping at his feet: "Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings. For there is none worthy of the name but God, whom heaven, earth and sea obey." His courtiers thought Canute could command the tides like God. Now, Canute was a religious man who believed in the power of God as infinitely greater than man's. So to humor his courtiers and to teach them this lesson, he studied the tides, chose a time and location for his throne to be situated at the ocean shore, and as the tide came in, commanded the waves to advance no further. When they didn't, he had made his point that kings might be great in the eyes of man, but were nothing in the face of God's power.

Missing Pieces in the History of the World

Who and what events and discoveries would you include if you were compiling a History of the World? The BBC came up with their list of most oft overlooked moments. Here are a few:

1. "In 1909, Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch created a way of producing huge amounts of" industrial-grade ammonia for use in fertilizers.

2. "Ibn al-Haytham was born in about 965 in what is now Iraq, and is regarded by some by some as the real father of the scientific method, predating Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes in the 17th Century. He was [also] the first to disprove the theory that we see objects by rays of light emitted from our eyes, realising instead that we see because light enters our eyes."

3. The Danube Script found on Neolithic artefacts is as yet undesciphered and archeologists have not been able to decide whether it is indeed one of the earliest forms of writing or just random, ritualistic symbols.

4. "Double-entry book-keeping, which [was] introduced to Europe in the early 16th Century by the monk Luca Pacioli, is a financial accounting system that [recognizes that] all transactions have two aspects, a credit and a debit, and the two sets of figures [must] always balance."

5. The Seven Years' War (1756-1763) was truly the first World War, since it "involved all the great powers of Europe and saw France, Austria, Russia and Sweden on one side, and Britain, Prussia and Hanover on the other."

6. The Kingdom of Aksum (Axum) in north-eastern Africa became one of the world's greateast markets in the first century CE. It was one of Rome's great trading partners and was characterized by a "highly innovative urban civilisation."

7. The Law Code of King Hammurabi (1792-1750 BCE), the first ruler of the Babylonian Empire, are written in Akkadian, include concepts such as evidence-based justice and giving testimony under oath. Hammurabi "adorns the wall of the American Supreme Court."

8. Angkor Wat of 9th–12th century Cambodia was the "largest pre-industrial urban complex in the world" of its time, with "sophisticated hydraulic engineering and water management systems."

Today in History

September 7th is the 250th day (251st day in leap years) of the Gregorian calendar. On this day in 1822, Brazil won its independence from Portugal. It's also the National Threatened Species Day in Australia and Victory Day in Mozambique.


On this day in...

70 – A Roman army under Titus occupies and plunders Jerusalem.
1191 – Third Crusade: Battle of Arsuf – Richard I of England defeats Saladin at Arsuf.
1776 – World's first submarine attack: the American submersible craft Turtle attempts to attach a time bomb to the hull of British Admiral Richard Howe's flagship HMS Eagle in New York Harbor.
1812 – Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Borodino – Napoleon wins a Pyrrhic victory over the Russian army of Alexander I near the village of Borodino.
1864 – American Civil War: Atlanta, Georgia, is evacuated on orders of Union General William Tecumseh Sherman.
1876 – In Northfield, Minnesota, Jesse James and the James-Younger Gang attempt to rob the town's bank but are driven off by armed citizens.
1893 – The Genoa Cricket & Athletic Club, to become the first Italian football club, is established by British expats.
1895 – The first game of what would become known as rugby league football is played, in England, starting the 1895–96 Northern Rugby Football Union season.
1901 – The Boxer Rebellion in China officially ends with the signing of the Boxer Protocol.
1906 – Alberto Santos-Dumont flies his 14-bis aircraft at Bagatelle, France for the first time successfully. 1911 – French poet Guillaume Apollinaire is arrested and put in jail on suspicion of stealing the Mona Lisa from the Louvre museum.
1916 – Federal employees win the right to Workers' compensation by Federal Employers Liability Act (39 Stat. 742; 5 U.S.C. 751)
1921 - In Atlantic City, New Jersey, the first Miss America Pageant, a two-day event, is held. 1927 – The first fully electronic television system is achieved by Philo Taylor Farnsworth
1936 - The last surviving member of the ">thylacine species, the Tasmanian Wolf or Tiger, dies alone in her cage at the Hobart Zoo in Tasmania.
1940 – World War II: The Blitz – Nazi Germany begins to rain bombs on London. This will be the first of 57 consecutive nights of bombing. 1940 – Treaty of Craiova: Romania loses Southern Dobrudja to Bulgaria.
1942 – Holocaust: 8,700 Jews of Kolomyia (western Ukraine) sent by German Gestapo to death camp in Belzec.
1945 – Japanese forces on Wake Island, which they had held since December of 1941, surrender to U.S. Marines.
1953 – Nikita Khrushchev is elected first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
1963 – The Pro Football Hall of Fame opens in Canton, Ohio with 17 charter members.
1970 – Bill Shoemaker sets record for most lifetime wins as a jockey (passing Johnny Longden).
1979 – The Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, better known as ESPN, makes its debut.
1979 – The Chrysler Corporation asks the United States government for USD $1.5 billion to avoid bankruptcy.
1986 – Desmond Tutu becomes the first black man to lead the Anglican Church in South Africa.
1988 – Abdul Ahad Mohmand, the first Afghan in space, returns aboard the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz TM-5 after 9 days on the Mir space station. 1996 – American Hip-Hop star Tupac Shakur is fatally shot four times on the Las Vegas strip after leaving the Tyson-Seldon boxing match.
2004 – Hurricane Ivan, a Category 5 hurricane hits Grenada, damaging 90% of its buildings.
2005 – First presidential election is held in Egypt.

Picture Day Friday

A gorilla at a British animal park has achieved fame for walking upright on his hind legs like a human. Ambam, a 21-year-old Western lowland silverback gorilla, was filmed strolling about his enclosure by animal researcher Johanna Watson.

Upright Walking Gorilla. Siblings walk upright and father walked upright, too. Evolution in progress?

Rubber Duckie: a history

According to The Mini Rubber Duckie Book by Jodie Davis, the same comfortable companion of childhood bubble baths, the rubber duckie, has now made a reappearance as the collectible.

The early origins of the rubber duckie are shrouded in mystery. No patent can be found for the first definitive creation. No toymaker fairytale, no child genius inventor, nor any memorable storybook character. What occurred was a confluence of the fascination of little minds with baby animals and aquatic animals, bathtimes, and the material rubber. The first recorded findings are from the latest nineteeth century.

Whether the name is a duckie or a ducky is a hotly debated topic. One recent poll puts the votes bill-to-bill with 51-percent with ducky and 48-percent with duckie. But the decisive vote has been cast by Seasame Street's Ernie, whose signature song references a duckie.

Aiding Science

In January 1992, a storm washed 29,000 toys overboard from an ocean-traveling freighter. They bobbed and weaved on the whim of the ocean currents and the wind, while oceanographers around the world scrambled to track them. Now, more than ten years later, computer projections show some ducks swam to the North Atlantic coast and to Greenland, while the hardier toys continued on to Britain and Africa. They migratory patterns havehelped accurately delineate the ocean currents at various times of the year.

Racing for Charity

The Great American Duck Race is the brainchild of Eric Schechter. It is one of the wackiest and fastest growing fund raising scheme in the nation. The company leases ducks out to various charities who then require each participant to pay a sponsorship fee for adopting a duck. At a top speed of nine mile per hour, the ducks can take anywhere from two to sixty minutes to finish their races, with prizes for the winning sponsor.

Building a Collection

Tips to build a thriving collection:
0. Have fun!
1. Decide where you want your collection to have a specific theme.
2. Research on the Internet for reliable stores to buy from via duckie collectors.
3. Keep the box and tags of a brand-new duckie in a pristine state to retain its value.
4. Online auctions are good sources of old ducks.
5. Set up an appropriate display for your collection.

Are you a rubber duckie collector? If so, how many do you have in your collection. How about a link to some photos? If you've never thought of starting a rubber duckie collection, had this posted vetted your interest in these stalwart elastic beauties?