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The fragments constitute what the researchers say is the “earliest evidence of a graphic tradition among prehistoric hunter-gatherer populations. [Kate Wong Scientific American]
Last week the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences [PNAS] in the US published a report detailing research on an archaeological finding of 270 pieces of engraved ostrich eggshell at Diepkloof in South Africa’s Western Cape province. The ornate shell pieces were once believed to have been used as containers for day-to-day storage of liquids. Their standardised decoration is seen as an early example of individual or group graphic communication dating back 60,000 years ago:
The lines are crossed at right angles or oblique angles by hatching. By the repetition of this motif, early humans were trying to communicate something. Perhaps they were trying to express the identity of the individual or the group. [Dr Pierre-Jean Texier from the University of Bordeaux, Talence, France]
The shells are not the earliest recorded examples of symbolism, shell beads found at another site in South Africa; Pinnacle Point, date to around 165,000 years ago. They are, however, notable for how many have been unearthed and the fact that they point to a system of symbolic representation:
Here we've got something that we can compare with later material that clearly does have important signalling value in the populations. It's a very nice link between the Middle Stone Age, the later Stone Age and even recent populations in South Africa. One question now is whether this is a special site, or as we excavate more sites will we find this material is more widespread? [Professor Chris Stringer, of London's Natural History Museum]
Above & top: Engraved ostrich eggshell from Diepkloof
Text credit: http://www.scientificamerican.com
http://www.pnas.org | http://news.bbc.co.uk
Nature, well it's a godsend. It just has so much in it. And I think nature wants to express itself in the sense that we are nature. Humans are of the universe. The universe is in our mind, and our minds are in the universe. And we are expressions of the universe. Basically as humans, ultimately being part of the universe, we are kind of the spokespeople or the observer part of the constituency of the universe. And to interface with it, with a device that lets these forces that are everywhere, act and show what they can do, giving them pigment and paint, just like an artist, you know, it's a good ally. It's a terrific studio assistant. [Tom Shannon]
Got a spare 13 minutes and 22 seconds? Then might I recommend an intriguing and inspirational short film from the excellent TED. Artist Tom Shannon speaks to John Hockenberry about the process that goes into making his Pendulum paintings. The works he creates are a combination of the precision of machinery guided by natural forces and the unpredictable quality of traditional painting materials.
There is something very appealing about the exactitude of science that I really enjoy. And I love the shapes that I see in scientific observations and apparatus, especially astronomical forms, and the idea of the vastness of it, the scale, is very interesting to me. [Tom Shannon]
Above: Still from Tom Shannon: The painter and the pendulum
Above top: Still from Tom Shannon: The painter and the pendulum
Text credit: http://www.ted.com/
A journalist with no scruples and a pair of Danish comedians travel to North Korea with a mission to use humour to uncover the truth behind one of the world's most notorious regimes. [BBC]
Now and again the BBC show some cracking documentaries which remind you what television should be like. One series that never disappoints is Storyville. Their collection of films presented over the last 10 years, which has managed to fly under the radar of more mainstream schedules and used to be found in the early hours on BBC Two, now has a home on BBC Four. For those able to watch content on the iPlayer [think it is UK only] I must recommend Storyville's latest offering, Mads Brugger's documentary "Kim Jong Il's Comedy Club":
On the pretext of being a small Danish theatre troupe on a cultural exchange, the filmmaker was granted permission by the North Korean government to stage a performance for a select audience in the capital. In reality, the troupe was comprised of an unscrupulous journalist, Mads Brugger, and two Danish/Korean comedians, Jacob and Simon, of whom the former is handicapped. Their goal is to use humour to expose the intricate effects of an oppressive regime. [BBC]
Above: Still from Kim Jong Il's Comedy Club
Above top: Still from Kim Jong Il's Comedy Club
Text credit: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes
Moon
|
03.02.10
There was a time when energy was a dirty word – when turning on your lights was a hard choice. Cities in brownout, food shortages, cars burning fuel to run. But that was past. Where are we now? How did we make the world so much better? Make deserts bloom? Right now we're the largest producer of fusion energy in the world. The energy of the sun, trapped in rock, harvested by machine from the far side of the moon. Today we deliver enough clean-burning Helium 3 to supply the energy needs of nearly 70% of the planet. Who'd have thought, all the energy we ever needed, right above our heads. The power of the moon, the power of our future. [taken from Moon, 2009]
The Nominations for the 82nd Academy Awards were announced yesterday with a notable omission (in my worthless opinion) for British science fiction-psychological thriller Moon:
"Moon" is a superior example of that threatened genre, hard science-fiction, which is often about the interface between humans and alien intelligence of one kind of or other, including digital. John W. Campbell Jr., the godfather of this genre, would have approved. [Roger Ebert]
With a couple of BAFTA nominations on the way, a BIFA award and critical praise not only for the film's production and direction (the debut feature of director Duncan Jones) but also the excellent solo performance by Sam Rockwell, I am sure its not too big a disappointment on the Oscar front. Plus the good news is Moon is hoped to be the first part of a trilogy with the follow-up (an epilogue to Moon) tentatively titled Mute.
Above: Still from Moon, 2009
Above top: Still of the character 'GERTY' (Kevin Spacey) from Moon, 2009
Text credit: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com
It’s phenomenal to hold the Internet in your hands. [Steve Jobs, yesterday's iPad launch]
If you haven't already been notified, yesterday Apple unveiled to the world a device that had been years in planning and development and one which it hopes will change the way people connect with technology – the iPad:
Imagine being able to page through websites, write an email, flick through photos, or watch a movie. All on a big, beautiful, Multi-Touch screen. With just the touch of a finger.[www.apple.com]
Plugging that previously unseen gap between a smart-phone and a laptop, the minimal pad is generating more discussion surrounding what has been left out rather than the potential it offers. No flash support, USB port, multi-tasking or pressure-sensitive screen. Add to that a reliance upon 'apps', a decision to surround the screen in a rather large bezel and the suggested difficulty in positioning the object for use, you get an unclear picture as to how Apple's new invention will perform in the market-place. To see the alternative view, the iPad could be viewed as all these devices ultimately are – a stepping-stone onto the next model. The price-tag is very competitive and the hands-on factor is probably what will be the deciding blow as to whether or not it is a success:
…other analysts say they have heard similar criticism before — once aimed at the iPhone, which has now been bought by more than 42 million people around the world. These believers say Apple’s judgment on the market is nearly infallible. “The target audience is everyone,” said Michael Gartenberg, vice president for strategy and analysis at Interpret, a market research firm. “Apple does not build products for just the enthusiasts. It doesn’t build for the tens of thousands; it builds for the tens of millions.” [Brad Stone, New York Times]
The hype for touch-screen was certainly used up three years ago with the launch of the iPhone / iPod Touch and maybe because of that their new bigger brother has a harder task to delight the masses. All I am hoping is that it signals the end of the mouse and keyboard as we know them and brings about something more intuitive, time will tell if that happens but the iPad is a promising indication of what is to come.
Above: Still from 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968
Above top: The new Apple iPad
Text credit: http://www.nytimes.com
Hunger is hunger, but the hunger gratified by cooked meat eaten with a knife and fork is a different hunger from that which bolts down raw meat with the aid of hand, nail and tooth. [from Outlines of the Critique of Political Economy, 1858, Karl Marx]
The chopping tool above is the oldest humanly made object in the British Museum, over 1.8 million years old in fact, it is the Olduvai stone. It is also one of the first artifacts that document man's relationship with (or even dependence upon) his 'objects'.
Louis Leakey, the flamboyant Kenyan-born fossil hunter and champion of the importance of Africa for human evolution, was 28 when he found this stone tool. Not everyone believed that they were ancient artefacts and he had to wait another thirty years before it could be scientifically proven. [Professor Clive Gamble, Archaeologist, Royal Holloway University of London]
The reason I am telling you this? A few days ago The British Museum and BBC Radio Four launched 'A History of the World in 100 objects', an attempt to highlight the treasures in the museum's collection and their link to social development in the world:
Telling history through things, whether it's an Egyptian mummy or a credit card, is what museums are for, and because the British Museum has collected things from all over the globe, it's not a bad place to try to tell a world history. Of course, it can only be "a" history of the world, not "the" history. When people come to the museum they choose their own objects and make their own journey round the world and through time, but I think what they will find is that their own histories quickly intersect with everybody elses, and when that happens, you no longer have a history of a particular people or nation, but a story of endless connections. [The British Museum's director, Neil MacGregor]
the Olduvai stone chopping tool is at number two in the list and there are 99 other equally fascinating object waiting to be explored on the website, at the museum or In the 15-minute broadcasts, weekdays on Radio 4.
Above: David Attenborough with the Olduvai stone chopping tool
Above top: Olduvai stone chopping tool
Text credit: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/
"Usually I throw away what I don't get right the first time." – Kenneth Noland
A pupil of Joseph Albers and a leading American abstract painter of the last century, Kenneth Noland died of cancer at the start of the year aged 85:
Noland became celebrated in the 1950s for his series of concentric circles in a dazzling array of colours; not, like the paintings of Jasper Johns, targets, but circles as a simple geometric form that could demonstrate an infinite number of colour combinations. Next came circles with blurred edges, like blazing catherine wheels, diamond shapes, diamonds within circles, chevrons and stripes. The message was colour, usually pure and always simple.
His official site is a treasure-trove.
Above: Refresh, 1999, Kenneth Noland
Above top: MYSTERIES: INFANTA, 2000, Kenneth Noland
Text Credit: www.guardian.co.uk
“In a year dominated by world-shaking political events, a pandemic, the after effects of a financial tsunami and the death of a revered pop icon, the word Twitter stands above all the other words. " – Paul JJ Payack, President of The Global Language Monitor
It is quite a difficult task to sum up something in a word because you have to get it spot-on. So now think of how hard it must be to sum up the year 2009 in one word. Well actually there is no need to, the internet can [as usual] do that for you. In fact, several different groups purporting to be the official experts on words have, in the last few weeks, offered their take on the top words of 2009. First up, The Global Language Monitor, an Austin, Texas-based language trending company, revealed their top word as 'Twitter', top phrase as 'King of Pop' and their top name as 'Obama':
"To us it's kind of a surprise that Twitter came up as number one rather than Obama, but that tells you how big Twitter is globally. The success of the word is not just because social media are "taking the world by storm," but because it's "a fun word" which has spawned a whole vocabularly of tweets, twictionaries and even twitterature. It's like Obama – you don't have a lot of play on the word Gordon Brown, or George W Bush – whereas you do with Obama, and you can with Twitter."
Perhaps more creatively however, the New Oxford American Dictionary 2009 Word of the Year was announced as 'unfriend'. They also gave a special mention to 'deleb' [a dead celebrity] and 'sexting' [the sending of sexually explicit texts and pictures by cellphone]:
“It [unfriend] has both currency and potential longevity,” notes Christine Lindberg, Senior Lexicographer for Oxford’s US dictionary program. “In the online social networking context, its meaning is understood, so its adoption as a modern verb form makes this an interesting choice for Word of the Year. Most “un-” prefixed words are adjectives (unacceptable, unpleasant), and there are certainly some familiar “un-” verbs (uncap, unpack), but “unfriend” is different from the norm. It assumes a verb sense of “friend” that is really not used (at least not since maybe the 17th century!). Unfriend has real lex-appeal.”
If you were feeling a bit disappointed that social-media has claimed all the best words of the year then an announcement from the Hsu Yusn-chih Memorial Foundation in Taiwan a couple of days ago may lighten your spirit:
After an extensive vote by the public, Taiwan has chosen the word "Hope" as the word of the year for 2009.[...] After suffering from the ravages of typhoon Morakot and the global financial turmoil in 2009, many Taiwanese are hoping to emerge from the confusion and embrace a brighter future. Said one man in the street: "I hope to go back home soon and rebuild my house." "I hope Taiwan's economy will pick up quickly. I hope everyone will have a better year in 2010," said another man in the street.
Above: Tributes for the 'King of Pop'
Above top: 'Obama-mania' takes hold in January 2009
Text Credit: www.languagemonitor.com / blog.oup.com / www.channelnewsasia.com
“There are known knowns… we also know that there are known unknowns… There are also unknown unknowns.”
- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Feb. 12, 2002
As we near the end of of this eventful decade of unknown name [or at least an awkward one; the 'Noughties' tag] there are countless lists emerging in the last few days and weeks with their own specific take on the last ten years in review. In fact, there are so many that, there are even lists of the lists [I am hopeful someone will compile these all up at some point...].
Visually, I will be surprised if anyone collates a set of more succinct 'iconic images' than The Boston Globe's 'The Big Picture':
Call it what you will, "the noughties", "the two-thousands" or something else, the first decade of the 21st century (2000-2009) is now over. Looking back on the past ten years through news photographs, it becomes clear that it was a dramatic, often brutal decade. Natural disasters, terrorist attacks and wars were by far the most dominant theme. Ten years ago, Bill Clinton was ending his final term in office, very few had ever heard of Osama bin Laden, the Taliban ruled Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein still ruled Iraq – all that and much more has changed in the intervening time. It's really an impossible task to sum up ten years in a handful of photographs, but below is my best attempt at a look back at the last decade.
Above:
U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer Bill Mesta replaces an official picture of outgoing President George W. Bush with that of newly-sworn-in U.S. President Barack Obama, in the lobby of the headquarters of the U.S. Naval Base January 20, 2009 in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. [Brennan Linsley-Pool/Getty Images]
Above top:
Internally Displaced People [IDPs] leave Kibati heading north from the city to their villages, Kibumba and Rugari, north of the provincial capital of Goma, Congo, on November 2, 2008. Several thousand people displaced in the fighting between rebels and government troops in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo began returning home Sunday as a ceasefire held, an AFP correspondent on the scene reported. [YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP/Getty Images]
Text Credit: www.boston.com/bigpicture
"Since this planet is so close to Earth, Hubble should be able to detect the atmosphere and determine what it's made of," said Charbonneau. "That will make it the first super-Earth with a confirmed atmosphere – even though that atmosphere probably won't be hospitable to life as we know it."
A few days ago, a press release from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics announced that a group of astronomers from the MEarth Project had discovered a 'super-earth' 6.5 times the mass of the Earth, 40 light-years away. What makes the finding so extra-special is that the planet and its host star, GJ1214 were found using a set of 'small ground-based telescopes' giving hope to amateur star-gazers everywhere:
Astronomers found the new planet using the MEarth (pronounced "mirth") Project – an array of eight identical 16-inch-diameter RC Optical Systems telescopes that monitor a pre-selected list of 2,000 red dwarf stars. Each telescope perches on a highly accurate Software Bisque Paramount and funnels light to an Apogee Alta U42 camera containing a charge-coupled device (CCD) chip, which many amateurs also use.
"Since we found the super-earth using a small ground-based telescope, this means that anyone else with a similar telescope and a good CCD camera can detect it too. Students around the world can now study this super-earth!" said David Charbonneau of CfA, lead author and head of the MEarth project.
[If you have a spare 50mb, the time-lapse movies of dancing telescopes at the bottom of this page are well worth a watch.]
The newly-discovered 'super-earth' is super-hot – about 400 degrees Fahrenheit, it is believed to be made up of three-fourths water, and one-fourth rock. There are also hopes that the planet could have a gaseous atmosphere:
When astronomers compared the measured radius of GJ1214b to theoretical models, they found that the observed radius exceeds the model's prediction, even assuming a pure water planet. Something more than the planet's solid surface may be blocking the star's light – specifically, a surrounding atmosphere. The team also notes that, if it has an atmosphere, those gases are almost certainly not primordial. The star's heat is gradually boiling off the atmosphere. Over the planet's multiple-billion-year lifetime, much of the original atmosphere may have been lost. The next step for astronomers is to try to directly detect and characterize the atmosphere, which will require a space-based instrument like NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. GJ1214b is only 40 light-years from Earth, within the reach of current observatories.
Above: A webcam view of four of the eight MEarth Project telescopes
Above top: A fisheye camera viewing all eight MEarth Project telescopes
Text Credit: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics