[I totally fell for this too. -egg]

I’ve heard — and repeated — the theory that addiction rates among indigenous people in the Americas was caused by genetics — specifically, that “new world” populations hadn’t gone through the European plague years’ genetic bottleneck that killed everyone who couldn’t survive on alcoholic beverages (these having been boiled during their production and thus less likely to carry infectious diseases).

But there’s no evidence to support that theory — it’s just a story without any falsifiable hypotheses. Our received scientific wisdom is full of well-known “facts” that are just fairy-tales made up to explain social problems through a biological lens (see, for example, virtually the entire field of Darwinian psychology). These science-tales serve a social purpose: they situate social problems as being innate and outside of the realm of human fault. Particularly, they excuse away any social inequality as being the (seemingly inevitable) result of our biology, and not the result of some people grabbing more than their fair share, at everyone else’s expense.

Source: Genocide, not genes: indigenous peoples’ genetic alcoholism is a racist myth / Boing Boing

In Feldman’s version of things, the castrato had no interest in being figuratively or really female, but rather was ‘decidedly male’. In a rather wonderful sentence, she questions the very idea of maleness. ‘Maleness was a zone of ambiguity only if we presuppose it as a category of sexual identity in the first place.’ Instead, she sees maleness in Italy in the period when the castrati flourished as a political category that involved having personal access to power and wealth, and to easy autonomy. Castrati, as she points out, managed their estates, decided on heirs and bequests; they also had an international network of friends, patrons and associates. They went where they liked, they did what they liked, some of them even married women. That might be a useful definition, indeed, for a man, and not only in the 18th century.

In fact, some of the best-known roles for castrati were the alpha males Alexander the Great, Richard I, Titus Andronicus and Julius Caesar. Boys were castrated to make them better and stronger singers, not to make them girls. On the other hand, while living in the house of a Russian prince the castrato Balatri ‘gained unheard of access to the sexually segregated, staunchly Orthodox female quarters of the household, where he spent many an hour by the embroidery frames, and he was even dressed up in drag by the princess and her girls for fun’.

In Portrait of a Castrato, Roger Freitas writes that ‘contemporaries frequently regarded castrati as analogues to boys … The castrato does seem frequently to have taken the boy’s role in sodomitical sex.’ Thus castrati could shift and transform themselves. Everybody, it seemed, wanted them, but for different things. Girls wanted to dress them up; men wanted to fuck them. When composers needed them to sound like angels rather than play the parts of big strong men, they merely wrote different music, making castrati sound sweet, maybe even divine. They sang over the bodies of dead children as much as they sang the big warrior roles. ‘As angel guardians of the dead,’ Feldman writes, ‘young castrati were assimilated to other androgynous beings of long ancestry, giving them special mimetic flexibility as intercessories with the divine.’

Colm Tóibín reviews ‘The Castrato’ by Martha Feldman and ‘Portrait of a Castrato’ by Roger Freitas · LRB 8 October 2015

 

The lower reaches of the southern slopes of Khasi and Jaintia hills, in Northeastern India, are humid, warm and streaked by many swift flowing rivers and mountain streams. On the slopes of this hill, among the dense undergrowth, a species of Indian Rubber tree – (Ficus Elastica) –  thrives and flourishes. These trees shoot out many secondary roots from their trunks. The trees, supported by these secondary roots, can comfortably perch itself on huge boulders along side the riverbanks or in the middle of rivers and send its roots down to the riverbed.

The ancient War-Khasi people, a tribe in Meghalaya, had noticed these qualities of this tree and had adapted it to serve their need for building bridges across rivers and streams. In order to direct the roots in the desired direction, the Khasis sliced betel nut tree trunks half in the middle for their entire length, hollowed them out and passed the thin and long tender roots through them. The roots start growing towards other end of the stream and when they are reached they are allowed to take root in the soil. Given enough time, a sturdy, living bridge is produced.

Some of these root bridges can carry fifty or more people at a time and can be over 100 feet long. These bridges take 10 to 15 years to become fully functional, and they keep growing in strength by the day. Some of these bridges are well over 500 years old.

Source: The Living Root Bridges of Cherrapunjee, India | Amusing Planet

Meticulously placing small, ornate materials in eye-dazzling patterns Suzan Drummen produces kaleidoscopic installations that appear like three dimensional textiles. Within these pieces Drummen likes to explore how artwork can seduce and repulse, drawing the viewer in to take a closer look at the specific details that form the larger installation.“From a distance they appear clear and orderly, yet upon closer inspection, the eyes become disoriented by the many details and visual stimuli,” said Drummen. “That moment of being able to take it all in or not is explored time and time again.”Although many of her pieces when zoomed out appear like textiles, a recent installation takes this to heart, appearing like two oriental rugs—one in the color scheme of pink and red and the other in greens and blues. The first piece subtly climbs up the wall, playing further into the illusionistic quality of how her crystal constructions are perceived. This optical trickery is also reflected in her works that involve bodies, ordinarily dressed participants bedazzled to match the pattern on which they sit or lay.You can see more of the Netherlands-based artist’s work on her Facebook page here.

Source: New Ornate Kaleidoscopic Installations That Mimic Patterned Textiles by Suzan Drummen | Colossal

Developing nanoparticles capable of adhering to skin has led a team of scientists from Yale University to come up with a new type of sunscreen, and it’s one that they claim is safer, because it lacks chemicals that can penetrate the dermis and cause potential health issues.

The authors, who published their findings in Monday’s edition of the journal Nature Materials, explained that while most commercial sunblocks do a good job of providing protection from the sun’s rays, they can go beneath the surface and enter the blood stream. If and when they do, they could potentially even help cause the very skin cancers they intent to prevent.

Dr. Mark Saltzman, the Goizueta Foundation Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Yale, and his colleagues have developed an alternative that is made from bioadhesive nanoparticles. Their sunscreen remains on the surface of the skin and does not enter the bloodstream, as the particles used to make it are large enough to prevent entry through the surface of the epidermis.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1113409340/yale-scientists-create-a-healthier-sunscreen-that-doesnt-penetrate-skin-092815/#iVwxv8LXJs16mRm0.99

Your computers, your phones, your medical devices, even your cars are under attack. They are being controlled remotely, with unseen overlords dictating without your consent what you can and cannot do with them.

Who are the attackers I’m talking about? Not foreign hackers, not government spies, but the very manufacturers from whom you bought those products. And their weapon of choice is not computer infiltration, but rather patent law.

In just a few weeks, a federal patent appeals court will be making a key decision as to whether or not this sort of zombie control over your possessions will be permitted by law. The case itself, called Lexmark International v. Impression Products, is being heard today and is about a very specific product, namely laser printer toner cartridges. But the decision could have far-reaching effects as the world moves toward an Internet of Things, where all devices can become computerized, all devices can become automated—and all devices can be controlled by their manufacturers without the buyers’ consent.

Source: How You Can Use Gadgets May Hinge on a Printer Ink Case

Oh dear lord, do I ever want the PocketLab: “A Swiss Army Knife of Science.”

Launched via Kickstarter, the small device contains numerous sensors to measure acceleration, force, angular velocity, magnetic field, pressure, altitude, and temperature and send that data to smartphones or laptops. According to inventor Clifton Roozeboom, it’s a tool for students and citizen scientists who can’t afford to spend tens of thousands of dollars on lab equipment and will get the data they need from this $100 gadget.

Here’s an IEEE article, too, and here’s a direct link to their home page. Check out the video!