The Long, Long Life of Jiroemon Kimura

Last Monday, I wrote about the oldest people in the world (some of which still living) and mentioned a man by the name of Jiroemon Kimura. He's from Kyotango, Japan, he's 116 years old, and, as it turns out, his birthday was last Friday.

Happy Birthday, Jiroemon!

He seems pretty happy for someone who's seen almost 

every terrible thing that has ever happened in modern history.

But he also has another record going for him. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Jiroemon is the only man left alive who was born in the 19th Century. He was born 116 years ago, last Friday, in 1897. 

There are, however, at least 21 women who were born before 1901. And in the referenced article above, it's important to note some interesting statistics. Mainly, that 90 percent of "supercentenarians" (I think they get a cape when they are officially classified as such) are women, due in part to having two X chromosomes, which "offers a certain amount of protection from disease and disability." Also, there are an estimated 200-300 people who can claim that title. And as I mentioned in my previous post, having a healthy lifestyle isn't that important to living past 100. In fact, at least 20 percent of those supercentenarians engage in very unhealthy habits, including eating unhealthily, smoking, and living sedentary lives. 

Just for fun, let's look at some of the notable things in history that took place in 1897:

• William McKinley becomes president of the United States on March 4th
• The first Boston Marathon is held April 19. Only fifteen men race, and John McDermott wins.
• Speaking of Boston: The Boston subway opened on September 1, 1897, becoming the first underground metro in North America.
• Dracula, by Bram Stoker, is first published on May 26. (This one blows my mind.)
• The word "computer", meaning an electronic calculation device, is first used.
• Bayer first produces Aspirin.
• The electron is discovered by scientist J. J. Thomson.

And a couple other famous births in 1897:

• Amelia Earhart - July 24, 1897
• William Faulkner - September 25, 1897

Hummingbirds!

Apparently, hummingbirds birth mentos.

Inspired by the above picture of a hummingbird nest (seriously, SO TINY!), here are some fascinating hummingbird facts:

• They hover in mid-air by flapping their wings between 12 and 100 times a second.
• They have the ability to go into a state of hibernation (torpor) during times of food shortages and while they sleep, at which point their heart beats slow to just 1/15th of the normal rate.
• That's still fast, considering that their heart rate at rest is 250 beats per minute, and can reach rates of up to 1,260 beats per minute.
• They can fly at speeds of up to 34 mph.
• They are the only birds that can fly backwards.
• Some species of hummingbirds weight less than a penny at full maturity.

(Sources: Wiki, and Worldofhummingbirds.com)

-JJ

Venice on Stilts

Just because I never knew for sure, but everyone always looks at me funny when I said it: Venice is a city built on wooden pillars.

Here's a picture of what that looks like when you push away all that pesky water:

The pillars are called "piles," and they're made of alder wood, which has extremely high water resistance (important when your building is resting on top of submerged wood). The piles are driven down through the softer sand and mud at the bottom of the ocean, and rests on the much harder stone and mud deeper down. The wood was harvested from the southerwestern region of Slovenia known as Kras. While the timber was originally harvested in moderation, deforestation for grazing land has rendered it basically barren, with only 1/3 of the region covered in forest.

Reading about Venice has made me miss it a bit. Sarah says that she would go back immediately if given the change, but I sometimes have my reservations. Don't get me wrong: it's a magical place, and she and I had the most fantastic time on our honeymoon there. But I feel like we wore it out. We walked everywhere, saw almost everything, and savored it as much as we possible could. Maybe because of that -- or maybe I just don't like the idea of having to walk EVERYWHERE -- I'm content with leaving it to memory. I still want to travel and see more parts of the world, but I think I can cross Venice off the list for now. Maybe one day I'll change my mind, but right now I'm content with what it gave us.

And because I've been reading about Venice and seeing pictures from the article, here's another picture of one of my favorite places: the Rialto Bridge. (This is not my picture; although, we stood at that exact spot and got pictures at both night and day. Absolutely gorgeous.)

-JJ

Jumping Cars

Skip to 1:42 for the real show.

If you watched the entire video, you saw that BOSE has been holding out on car buyers for a while. The test vehicle makes hairpin turns without rocking an inch, and stays steady enough on rocky back roads to make it look like it's gliding over new pavement. 

To be fair to BOSE, though, I've read that this type of suspension is more expensive than conventional suspension systems, and thus would not be economical for standard use in consumer vehicles. However, they are currently being used in some bus systems, and some higher end cars. I think some high-end cars even have them as an add-on for a couple thousand dollars more. 

We're not talking about my Corolla here, of course.

However, the real fun begins at 1:42. You see a car literally jumping over an obstacle. It's not as dramatic as a spike-strip, or a person lying prostrate in the path of the car, but it's impressive nonetheless. My Corolla certainly couldn't pull of that move, and neither could yours. 

Maybe one day it could, though. Perhaps, in some future time, when people are wearing silver and eating entire meals in pill form (yes, I get all of my future references from Back the the Future II), we will be able to avoid hitting a squirrel, cat or small dog by simply jumping our water-powered vehicles over the creatures and going about our merry way, enjoying the robotic sounds of whatever synthetic pop we're listening to at the time. We should have already had flying cars by now (seriously, I need to expand my references a bit), but I guess we can take a two-ton ollie if it gets us a little closer to The World of Tomorrow type enhancements. 

Honestly, though, I'll settle for a hoverboard.

-JJ

Manhattanhenge

Manhattanhenge

Two days out of the year, the sun aligns perfectly with 34th Street in New York City, creating the gorgeous phenomenon that many have dubbed "Manhattanhenge." This year, it's happening today (May 28th) and again on July 13th.

The author of the article linked above asks a wonderfully evocative question: what will archaeologists of the far future, looking out on the unearthed remains of the metal and concrete jumble that is present day New York City, think when they match the sun's rise to the layout of that particular street on their own Manhattenhenge date? Will they believe that people from our era still worshiped some unnamed sun god, and that this was our way of presenting our land to him/her as a symbolic sacrifice? That's what we gather from Stonehenge and the records that remain from its time of modernity. So, assuming it would be possible for all records of New York and it's true importance and place in the American landscape to disappear from existence, and assuming that 34th Street and the surrounding area could be buried by land or water and eventually unearthed by future mankind, it doesn't take a drastic leap of the imagination to picture those eventual future beings looking out at the grid of roads and the lining-up of the sun and seeing the connection as something more meaningful than a simple coincidence in timing.

Do I believe that those scenarios could come together to lead to that future discovery and extrapolation?

No. But it's fun to imagine.

-JJ

Update On the Printable Gun

A few days ago, I mentioned that there's now such a thing as a printable gun. Buy yourself a $1,700 3D printer, download the instructions to the device, wait 27 hours while the thing prints, and then you have yourself a working gun, capable of firing a .380 caliber bullet with enough velocity to seriously injure or kill.

Now, however, the police force in New South Wales, Australia, have determined that the gun can actually explode once fired, seriously injuring the user. After downloading the instructions, printing the gun, and firing it a test subject (a block of gelatin called "ballistic soap"), the gun exploded into several pieces. Luckily, it was attached to a firing rig and no one was hurt in the demonstration. 

I'm a bit of a skeptic, so I have to wonder if this experiment was all fabricated to deter people away from trying to print their own gun. Even though the instructions for the gun have been downloaded over 100,000 times (and that total was just as of the time that I wrote the last article; it's likely much more at this point), they've only been seen in public a handful of times. This new test and the results that have been reported might just be a ploy to keep more people from attempting to create their own firearm. That's just my own speculation, but I have to think that someone might see that result and determine that it's just not worth putting themselves at risk in order to print off an illegal, possibly defective gun. 

Either way, this thing is dangerous. I still stand behind my initial point that 3D printers are amazing, and they have remarkable potential to help people. In fact, scientists have begun using the device to print food for astronauts, using a powder cartridges containing "sugars, complex carbohydrates, protein or some other basic building block" to print edible wafers. The powdered ingredients can last up to 30 years, illustrating the potential for long-term storage on those extended missions to Mars that everyone's clamoring for. And speaking of printing food: they could even be used to print food in places where food resources are scarce or none-existent. Pack up a printer and a few dozen powder containers, and you could feed a village in the middle of the desert for a week. 

Obviously, this technology has wonderful potential. However, like everything else in this world, there is no black and white with this thing, no way to separate the good potential from the opportunity for it to be used maliciously. So, unless there is some sort of restriction put on the creation of the Liberator, this could cause an unfortunate precedent of unrestricted use that could end in lots of injury and heartache.

It seems like it all boils down to censorship and personal rights. So, it's basically the same argument that people have always had, but with new ammunition (no pun intended).

-JJ

I Vaguely Remember Forgetting It

The Curse of Reading and Forgetting

This article discusses the fact that, in the words of a quote included in the article, it is "humanly certain that most of us remember very little of what we have read." To someone like me, who can forget a name within seconds and an event within minutes, it is of great comfort to read that forgetting the plots, characters, et cetera of books that I have read is not only common, but even normal.
Even while reading, I can drift away. Usually, this occurs when I'm reading a particularly slow portion of the text, perhaps the introspective banter of a character or set of characters, a moment lacking real action. But, in all honesty, I can fade away from the page during an active sequence almost as easily. There are many moments that can truly grasp my attention with claws and manhandle it away from distraction. But more often than not, I have to make an active effort to maintain focus and attention. 

The author of the article discusses how a colleague recommended a book to him that he had already read, a fact that was hidden beyond his memory until he had bought the book online, received it, and made it nearly fifty pages into the text. Likewise, the author mentions being asked about a book on his shelf at a party in his apartment, only to realize how embarrassing it would be to be asked any follow up questions about the book, since he had forgot almost everything about it. 

I'd like to think that this is not a damning bit of evidence against that specific book's effectiveness. Perhaps the fault of the book not to maintain a grasp on the reader's memory does lie in the details written by the author, but I'd like to give that writer the benefit of a doubt: perhaps they were just the unfortunate proof of the rule that I stated at the onset of this post. The reader simply forgot because he is a reader, and that's what readers do. They read, and then they forget.

I have those moments often, even with movies and songs that I've enjoyed at the time but completely forgot when asked about my opinions on them. My least favorite question about most of the entertainment I've ingested is "What was your favorite part?" More often than not, I will spend a good thirty seconds after being asked that question trying to come up with an answer, knowing that I won't be able to describe the part that was my favorite. Instead, I'll give them a part I remembered, and one that I remembered liking, no matter where it falls in the list of favorite parts. At least I'll have an answer. 

I do, however, have to say that I found solidarity in a comment by a reader on the article, who said that they could remember a book just by reading the synopsis on the back. That usually does it for me; if I can get characters and a general sense of the plot, I can start to gather more little bits about the work so that I can actually have a conversation about it. That's how my memory seems to work: very little at first, and then small floods that come like electrical shocks of recall.

So, at least I have that going for me.

-JJ

If I Dreamt About Cars, This Would Be the Star

I generally do not live a life of frivolity. I don't typically spend money if I don't need to, and I like to live as modestly as possible. Sometimes, this frugality is called "cheapness" and causes some issues with those closest to me. I blame this personal trait on my father's knack for making me realize the cost of things before committing to spending money. It's basically hard-wired into my brain to consider the opportunity cost of an item before actually going for it.

I have always said that this particular brand of penny-pinching would probably continue even if I manage to get a well-paying job that would allow me to afford more luxury in my life. However, there is one thing that I would gladly spend my money on, if I had enough to pay for it with cash and then still have plenty left over. 

This car:

If you've seen the movie "Gone In Sixty Seconds," you will immediately recognize this car as the "unicorn," the car of mythical legend, the treasured, revered, and ultimately obtained car of choice of the movie's protagonist. It was the fastest, the sexiest, and unequivocally the coolest car in the movie, and in my opinion, of all time. 

Her name is Eleanor. She's a 1967 Ford Mustang, and someone just bought her for $1 Million dollars.

Ok, so I wouldn't spend a million bucks on a car, even if I had it available in my pocket at a moment's notice. My conscience just couldn't allow it. However, if I could afford a look-alike, something with the same punch, aesthetically and mechanically, as this original beauty, I would gladly snatch it up. Sure, it probably gets less than fifteen miles per gallon, and sure it's probably obnoxiously loud. 

But just look at it. 

I don't drool over cars, or anything really (other than my wife). But I seriously want that car.

-JJ

Preview: Roads

Norway's Atlantic Ocean Road

Now I have to write an article about the top drives around the world that I want to experience before I die. The road from this image shall certainly be on that list.

-JJ

Reflection on the Night Sky

What you're seeing above are the first and second price winners of the 2013 Earth & Sky Photo Contest, held by The World At Night (TWAN) program. 

I remember when I received my first digital camera. I think it was a Nikon, but I definitely can't recall the model name. I do remember it being a relatively bulky contraption that probably took pictures with less megapixels than the camera on the phone I currently own. But I still remember how bummed I was when I tried to take a picture at night. Everything was dark, muted, blurry, and basically unrecognizable. It was a total loss, and it didn't look like I would ever get a good shot of the night sky, no matter how much I tinkered with the settings. 

Then, a few years later, I got a new camera -- still a Nikon, if my memory is correct  But still, it had the same old problem. No matter how much I tried -- tripods, timers, even the fancy setting on the new camera that allowed me to leave the shutter open a little longer than normal -- I couldn't get a good shot at night. 

Now about five or six cameras removed from that original Nikon, I still have the same trouble, even though the technological differences between my current camera and that first one are immense. Because I haven't invested in an expensive, semi-professional camera -- and likely never will -- I'll probably never get shots as clear, crisp, and breath-taking as the ones above. And maybe that's why I'm always so enamored with them. Mountain pictures can make me stop a moment and reflect, but a good shot of the night sky -- with the millions and millions of white dots, milky expanses of purple and pink, and occasional pops of color from distant galaxies -- I end up staring for several seconds, letting my mind wonder and wander through time and space. 

Maybe one day, if I become successful enough and rich enough to afford a really nice, expensive camera, I'll be able to take pictures like this one. But even then, I know myself well enough to know that no picture will be good enough. Just like all the pictures I take now, there will always be something missing. They're never real enough, bright enough, wide enough to capture the entire scene. They aren't alive. I don't think I'll ever accept that limitation of photography: you can never capture life, no matter how hard you try, no matter how long you wait with that shutter open.

I still try, though.

-JJ

Word of the Day: Proselytize

pros-e-ly-tize v. 

v.intr.1. To induce someone to convert to one's own religious faith.2. To induce someone to join one's own political party or to espouse one's doctrine.

 v.tr.To convert (a person) from one belief, doctrine, cause, or faith to another.

I may or may not do a "Word of the Day" from now on. Really, I've just been trying to remember this word for the last few days. Every once in a while, I'd think, "What is that word that means 'to preach,' but emphatically?" I realize that my definition is a little off from the actual denotation. But hey, I was close.

For some reason, though, as many times as I've seen this word written, I don't think I've ever heard it said out loud. Because of this, I have a hard time remembering it: it helps to know how a word sounds in order to properly recall it. So, any time that I've tried to say it to myself, I'm never sure if I'm saying it correctly. Often, I mix up the syllables. For instance, in order to find the word, I tried typing into the Google searchbar, "preach synonym prole..." because I didn't know how the rest of the word went. And obviously, I didn't know how the beginning of the word went, either.

I guess I affirmed something about myself today: I'm an auditory listener. That probably explains why I used to fall asleep reading a text book, but I could stay awake in a classroom listening to a lecture.

Anyway, I'm going to try to find a reason to incorporate this new word into everyday conversation. We'll see how that goes.

-JJ

India Bans Dolphin Captivity

Indians (from India, not Native Americans) will soon have to go elsewhere to see dolphins hit balls with their noses and jump through hoops. As of last Friday, the India’s Ministry of Environment and Forests “advised state governments to reject any proposal to establish a dolphinarium.” According to the ministry, they should be viewed as “‘non-human persons’ and as such should have their own specific rights” because of their “unusually high intelligence,” making it “morally unacceptable to keep them captive for entertainment purpose.”

Go India! You’re still dealing with incomprehensible bouts of misogyny and female abuse, but at least you’re making headway on animal rights. 

-JJ

Triangular Coins? Mkay, Australia.

Triangular Coin to Mark Canberra Birthday

Two things I found out from this article:

The first is pretty obvious: the country's first triangular coin has been minted, and it commemorates the Parliament House erected 25 years ago. Queen Elizabeth was there to oversee the building's opening, hence the picture of her head on one of the coin's sides (the other side is, appropriately, an image of the building in question).

The coin has a face value of $5 dollars (obviously), and is made of 99.9% silver. Ten thousand of them were minted, but not circulated to the public.

The second thing I learned from this article is that the capitol of Australia is Canberra. Not Sydney or Melbourne, the only cities in Australia I could name until today.

-JJ

Reflection on Reading

I found this picture online last week, but I didn't get around to posting it because I get tied up with my article about the coin-covered tree in Britain and how Tabasco sauce is made. Which is really a shame, because this is much more important than a funny tree and fermented peppers.

I might not ever know what it's like to teach kids this age. In fact, I have no real desire at this point in my life to do so. I want to teach, yes, and will venture into that world in the Fall, but I'll be facing people a little closer to my own age as a college professor. But that doesn't change the fact that I feel very passionate about young people reading. Just because I don't want to be at the front of a classroom full of young minds eager to learn doesn't mean that I don't want to see those kids grow up with a love of literature and reading that will hopefully lead them into a class that is a little more my style.

I remember when I started looking for a job in Charlotte while I was working on my Master's at UNCC. I looked everywhere for a job, and tried not to pigeonhole myself into something that I had already done in the past (Blockbuster, electrical supplies). But I put extra effort into getting a job at a book store. There were a few near my apartment (a privately owned, used bookstore; and a couple campus-centric bookstores either on or right off of school grounds), but I ended up getting a job at the Books a Million about ten minutes away. And I remember hearing that I got the job and being so excited because I was going to be working around books. 

However, the reality set up after a couple weeks. I was under the impression that working in a bookstore would basically be a four-hour long workshop with intellectual people, talking about our favorite books and discussing literature as if it was a great friend we all had in common. And those moments did happen, but at a much lesser consistency than I imagined. Instead, my job was to move stacks of books from one place to another, and to put books on the shelves. Primarily, though, my job was to clean up after the customers, who usually left food and empty drink containers on the floor, on the shelves, or dangling over stacks of books, most likely having ruined at least one with their sticky contents. I grew to dislike people while working there, and I'm just glad that I got out while I did instead of turning into some of the more seasoned employees, who rarely had anything good to say about the people they serviced. 

But there were moments that made up for all the annoyances, all of the ruined books and stacks of discarded magazines underneath tables and chairs. Those moments usually involved kids, who would run up to me while I was wearing that black apron, and ask where this book or that book was located. I would usually know what they were talking about, and trek to the young adult or kids section to find it for them, all the while they were practically licking at my heels with anticipation. Other times I might not know what they were looking for exactly, or where it was to be found, so I had to go to the kiosk in the middle of the store to click some keys and find it in the database. They would usually be talking hurriedly and excitedly amongst themselves (if they were with friends) or with me (if they were alone or with their parents, off looking for their own non-fiction or romance novel) about how awesome the book was, or how good their friends said it was, or how much the prequel changed their lives. They were excited about books, about written words, and about the stories in the pages of the books that they treasured. Adults often lacked this excitement, and they usually just wanted something to kill some time while they were waiting on their significant other, or they were looking for a book that was assigned to them in a college course. Kids, though, they felt some sort of electricity when they entered the book store, ready to devour the newest debut of a series they grew up with. And it was palpable, enviable. It made me excited to be at work, and it made me hope that they would fight the odds and hold on to that love of literature that many adults seem to forget, or "grow" out of.

Sometimes I wish I worked in a bookstore again. While there were many times when I was tired of catering to inconsiderate crowds of mall shoppers -- and I even tried to find a different job after a year there because I didn't think I could handle the situation any longer without developing a real, deep-seeded distrust for humanity in general -- there always seemed to be a shining light at the end of the dark tunnel, almost always in the form of the glint in the eye of a young reader. And I truly loved being around the books. They, too, almost made the job bearable. So, perhaps I won't ever go back to a large chain like that again. But I still maintain a pledge that I made to myself at a younger age: if, given the chance and financial stability, I have the opportunity to work in a used book store and still provide a comfortable life for my family, I would gladly spend the rest of my days around shelves filled with books. I still get it, and many kids still get it. That's why I love this picture, and that's why I still love books. They hold a magic that can turn a rowdy bunch of middle schoolers into a calm group of imaginations running wild. 

-JJ

I'd Rather Die In the Double Digits

Going in line with my last post about the oldest dog, I decided to check out some of the more interesting "oldest people" award winners and their dietary habits. Here are my findings after about fifteen minutes:

Jiroemon Kimura (116), the oldest person in the world, eats 3 meals a day (usually consisting of “rice, pumpkins and sweet potatoes”) until he is only “80% full” a practice known as hara hachi bu,” doesn’t smoke and only drinks a “modest” amount of alcohol.

In 2009, Gertrude Baines of Los Angeles died at 115. Her diet? “A steady diet of crispy bacon, fried chicken and ice cream.”

The oldest person who lived in India, Kareng Teronpi (120), supposedly lived on “a daily diet of bland boiled rice, vegetables, and, of course, a regular bottle of moonshine to keep her spirits high.” She also had a “passion for rice beer,” drinking at least two glasses of it (also called “Hor”) a day. Oh, and she avoided spicy food. Which is shocking considering she’s in India.

Other notable contenders for most interested diet for a centenarian:
- Jeanne Calment, who died in 1997 at the age of 122, gave credit to her longevity to “olive oil, which she poured on her food and used on her skin, drinking port wine, and eating about two pounds of chocolate every week.”
- Emiliano Mercado Del Toro, 115: “funche”: a stew made of boiled corn, codfish, and cream

(There are a lot more interesting centenarian stories on the Yahoo link, but I wanted to focus primarily on the ones that included their dietary habits.)

Thinking about old people always makes me consider my own mortality. Particularly, how I want to go and when. As for the how, my only request is that it's painless and quick. One long, hard-fought battle with cancer taught me that I don't want my own death to take any longer than it has to, and, if I have my own way, will include no disease and nothing painful. That might be asking a lot, but I'm hoping for an answered prayer when the time comes.

As for the when, I have a few requests there, as well. Mainly, I want it to happen before I become that old, decrepit man who requires constant care and attention. I'm too independent to allow someone to wait on me while I slowly degrade in a bed in some hospital or hospice care. I'd rather be put down before that could even happen. I know that's a lot to put my family through, if the unfortunate opportunity comes to make a decision between a vegetable-like life and a peaceful death. But I never want to be a burden, and I'd rather my memory remain as a person who could remain upright, walking, and taking care of himself. No feeding tubes, no wheelchairs, and no constant attention, thank you very much. 

I'll take a quick death after a short walk, than a long fade in the supine position.

 not 

-JJ

Max, the Canine Time Master

Oldest dog in the world (recorded, anyway) is almost 30 years old.

That's a face that says "I've sniffed more butts than you've seen in your whole life."

Max, a terrier who lives with his owners in New Iberia, Louisiana, was born on 9 August 1983, making him the oldest living dog, and the oldest dog on record, whether dead or alive. 

The article is from 2009, but as of the 17th of May, this year, Max is alive and kicking, according to the wikipedia article on the oldest dogs on record. 

What’s really interesting is how the owners describe Max’s life. He was fed “Kiddles and Bits (sic),” was “never” fed table scraps, and only had a couple toys – a rope and a ball. This dog lived a more minimal life than most other dogs, and comparatively even more minimal lives than most humans. This reminds me of a story that I read recently about one of the oldest living humans, who lived by similarly minimal means. I’ll have to find that article now, because I’m starting to sense a pattern to longevity that I should investigate.

But first, I have to put this into perspective. This dog was born 5 years before me. So, when I was just starting to crawl, it was already house trained (more than likely) and could probably sit on command. Max has been alive longer than I have. If we were in a cartoon movie, Max would be sitting on a porch and giving me life advice in the form of anecdotes about chasing balls that “only come back when you go out and get ‘em yourself.”

Also, the fact that I now have a dog makes me wonder if ours could ever live as long as Max. If Kashmir sees her 29th birthday, I will be 54 years old. At that point, I will have had her for more than half of my life. That’s a connection that I’ve never considered. I often find myself thinking “the next dog we get will probably already be grown,” but I have to realize that the next dog we get (if we wait until after Kash dies) could not happen until I’m in my 50s. Or, even if Kash doesn’t make such a milestone age as 29 and only lives to be the average 12-14, I’ll be near my forties. I’ll be a completely different person at that point. I will have taught my first college class (coming up in a few short months), and maybe even hundreds after that. Sarah and I might even have a kid then. 

Sometimes life can seem both miniscule and infinite all at the same time.

-JJ

That's Deep

Kola Superdeep Borehole

This is the only picture you get... Because it's a hole in the ground.

Started under the Soviet Union, on May 24, 1970. By 1989, it was the deepest hole ever drilled, and the “deepest artificial point on Earth” at 40,230 ft.

That's over 7 miles into the Earth.

Drilled in stages, the well was initially supposed to reach the target depth of 49,000 feet. However, by 1992, it was deemed unfeasible to continue past 40,230 feet after initial temperature estimates at this depth were proven incorrect. Originally estimated at 212 degrees Fahrenheit  actual temperatures at the final depth reached 356 degrees. 

A few details:

• At its current depth, the hole reaches a third of the way through the Baltic continental crust
• Rocks at the hole’s deepest point are at least 2.5 billion years old
• Now, the hole is used primarily for scientific research in such fields as:

“seismic discontinuities and the thermal regime in the Earth's crust; the physical and chemical composition of the deep crust and the transition from upper to lower crust; lithospheric geophysics; and to create and develop technologies for deep geophysical study.”

Not to be outdone, the US and Germany both set out to beat the depths of the Kola Borehole. The US project, which started out in 1957, never gained funding, and the German attempt only reached 29,859 feet because of higher than expected temperatures (which reached more than 500 degrees Fahrenheit).

The depth of the Kola Borehole has been surpassed twice, once in 2008 by an oil well in Qatar (40,318 feet deep) and again in 2011 by a Russian oil well in Bavaria (40,502 feet). However, “in terms of depth below the surface,” it still reigns supreme. It is also important to note that the Kola Borehole is different from the other mentioned here: the “deep core-drilled” method of drilling recovers the rock which is drilled though.

I like to imagine that scientists were secretly trying to reenact the plot of "Journey to the Center of the Earth" (the book, not the terrible Brenden Frasier movie from 2008).

-JJ

Another "Disappointment"

Mount Disappointment

Located in Melbourne, Australia, I'll let Wikipedia divulge the story behind the name:

After making the arduous climb to the summit, Australian explorers Hume and Hovell hoped to view the distant Port Phillip Bay. Unfortunately, the mountain's many trees prevented this, and consequently they recorded their feelings in the name they chose for the mountain.

However, they did eventually find gold in the mountain, and there was a fairly successful lumber harvesting operation on the mountain until 1939.

Then three people died in a plane crash.

Thanks a lot, Mt. Disappointment. 

Bonus Disappointment!

Looks like there's another mountain with this unfortunate moniker in Los Angeles County, California. Here's how it got its name:

In 1894, USGS surveyors sighted it from the Santa Susana Mountains, believing it to be the highest point in the immediate area, decided to use it as their next triangulation point. When they reached the summit, however, they discovered that San Gabriel Peak half a mile to the east was 167 feet (51 m) higher and so moved there instead.

These discoveries have sparked an interest in all things named under unfortunate circumstances. I expect the search to be underwhelming.

(What's even more disappointing is that I couldn't find a good picture of the mountain in Australia...)

-JJ 

"See" If You're Schizophrenic

Speaking of psychological tests, here's one that doesn't require a brain scan. In fact, it's as easy as watching a person's eye movements.

I had to include this creepy picture from the article. It's kind of horror movie / David Lynch.

Scientist have discovered a way to test for schizophrenia by simply observing the eyes of patients as they perform three simple functions:

1. Smooth pursuit: Everyone knows that your eyes need to be focused on something in order to move across the plane of vision smoothly. If you didn't know that, try it: try to move your eyes across the horizon smoothly without jumping from one object to another. It's impossible. With this test, researchers had subjects watch an object moving smoothly across their field of vision. Those with schizophrenia were unable to watch the object moving without jerking their vision forward rapidly.

2. Free-viewing: When we look at something -- a picture, a video, a person, etc -- our eyes take in lots of information. Usually, the eyes follow a specific pattern of movements depending on what we're looking at. They jump from one point to another, internalizing as much detail as possible. The eyes of people with schizophrenia, however, do not follow the normal patterns that have been observed in healthy patients.

3. Gaze Fixation Tasks: As anyone who has worked in retail, or in a cubicle, can tell you, staring at one point  -- the fuzzy cubicle wall, for instance -- can be pretty easy. Not so with schizophrenia patients. 

By studying the differences in the results of these tests between healthy patients and those with schizophrenia, scientists are confident that they can determine the likelihood of schizophrenia in a person with up to 98% accuracy.

I tried to perform those tests on myself. I'm pretty sure I don't have schizophrenia, but the voice in my head says I might be biased.

-JJ

Depression Possibly Linked to Circadian Clock Disruption

Depressed people have a "disrupted" circadian clock, according to new research done by the University of Michigan. 

This image isn't from the original article, but I think it's an interesting visualization of the physical affects of depression.

Scientists studied the rhythms of almost 12,000 genes in the brains of 55 deceased individuals, and 34 deceased people who were known depression sufferers. Their specific reason for the study was to determine if this kind of brain screening would help determine the time of death in a recently deceased person. By comparing the scans of the deceased brains with those of living tissue, they were able to match the time of death to within an hour. However, when they looked at the brain scans of the 34 people who had depression, they noticed that the rhythmic of the genes were not in sync with the regular rhythm of the circadian clock -- the brains natural sleep-wake cycle. Thus, they proved that those who have depression basically "live in a different time-zone" mentally than everyone around them. It's as if they are constantly suffering from jet-lag. This disruption affects the sleep cycle by not only offsetting their natural desire to be asleep, but might also affect the kind of sleep that they are getting when they actually fall asleep. 

The findings might give researchers a better understanding of depression, possibly allowing for better treatment.

As someone who does not fully understand depression, I can't make any assumptions as to what it would be like to suffer from the disease -- or disorder. See, I don't even know what to call it. But I know enough about sleep issues to know that they can truly affect ones mood. I've also gone through jet-lag before, and I can see how living like that all day, every day, could be maddening. To feel slightly off from everyone around you. Living in a fog of tiredness that no one understands, trying to make everyone understand, but being defeated when they can't quite grasp what's going on inside your head. Or maybe even feeling cheated when someone says that they understand, but you know that they never truly could. Sure, maybe they've been jet-lagged before. Maybe it lasted a few days, and they suffered from it, mentally, emotionally, or physically. But going through the affects for days, weeks, years. That's something I can't imagine. 

I would never belittle the emotional toll of depression by assuming that I know what it's like. But I appreciate that scientists are trying to understand it better, trying to do something to improve the lives of those that suffer from the disease/disorder. There may not be a "cure," but maybe this new study will give depressed people something to hope for.

-JJ

Out With the Old, Unfortunately

The "most important [archeological] site in northern Belize" was destroyed last week... to harvest the rocks for road-building.

Unfortunately, this isn't the first time that sometime like this has happened in Belize. The area is dotted with hundreds of similarly important ancient ruins, and it lacks the infrastructure needs to maintain all of these sites effectively.

This particular site -- known as "the Nohmul complex" -- was in the middle of a privately owned field. However, local law dictates that pre-Hispanic ruins are governmental property. 

Jamie Awe, head of the Belize Institute of Archaeology, makes a very interesting point:

"Just to realize that the ancient Maya acquired all this building material to erect these buildings, using nothing more than stone tools and quarried the stone, and carried this material on their heads, using tump lines,'' said Awe. "To think that today we have modern equipment, that you can go and excavate in a quarry anywhere, but that this company would completely disregard that and completely destroyed this building. Why can't these people just go and quarry somewhere that has no cultural significance? It's mind-boggling.''

Think about that. It took them years -- maybe even decades -- to build this site, and all that are like it. It took hundreds of workers thousands of hours to acquire the materials and pack them together by hand to create these historically, culturally, and, more than likely, religiously important structures. Lives were probably lost in the construction, and families probably saw life and death pass by while the walls steadily rose higher and higher.  

And then, within hours, machines came in and most of the outer walls were reduced to brick and rubble. For a road.

I know there's a quote about the cost of progress, but I'm too lazy to find it. 

But, as with most depressing stories, someone has a bright side: 

"The one advantage of this massive destruction, to the core site, is that the remains of early domestic activity are now visible on the surface,'' Rosenswig wrote.

Let's hope that some beneficial discovery comes out of this.

-JJ

Ranald MacDonald and Cape Disappointment

HIS WAS A LIFE OF ADVENTURE SAILING THE SEVEN SEAS 

Ranald MacDonald (via Wikipedia)

Note that the first name does not include an "o." This is not the happy/terrifying clown of fast food fame. 

Ranald MacDonald was the man arguably responsible for the negotiations between Matthew Perry and the Japanese forces at Kanagawa that ended centuries of cultural and economic isolationism and opened trade between Japan and the rest of the world. Although he is rarely mentioned, MacDonald was integral in the stages leading to the negotiations, as an instructor of English to many of those present in the negotiations.

After hitching a ride on the ship, the Plymouth, en route to Japan from Canada, MacDonald set himself out to sea on a small boat, landing on Rishiri Island in North Japan. Here, he was caught by locals and sent to  Nagasaki, where he instructed fourteen samurai in English. Ten months later, he was remitted back to American forces and made his way around the globe, finally settling back down in his home of Vancouver (what was then Lower Canada).

His story seems short, but in that time, he gained an appreciation for Japanese culture that led him to implore Congress to see the Japanese people as cultured, civilized, and worth the extra effort to negotiate for trade, rather than taking them by force, as was the popular opinion for approach at the time.

Good job, Ronnie.

Bonus fact: His mother (Raven, aka Princess Sunday [I didn't make that up]) was a Native person from a place called "Cape Disappointment," in modern-day Washington State. There are two theories as to the name: 

1) The cape was named on April 12, 1788 by British fur trader John Meares who was sailing south from Nootka in search of trade. After a storm, he turned his ship around just north of the Cape and therefore just missed the discovery of the Columbia River. 

2) The cape may have been named in November of 1805 by a member of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, which had recently succeeded in reaching the Pacific, when he found no ships in the vicinity, according to the journal of the expedition as recited in the Ken Burns documentary.

I prefer to think that it has something to do with the fact that it's one of the foggiest places in the US, receiving the equivalent of 106 days a year of white, moist blanketing.

But hey, at least they have a pretty cool looking lighthouse.

-JJ

A Short Reflection on Gatsby's Debt

Was the Great Gatsby Broke? (via NY Magazine)

Perhaps The Great Gatsby, in addition to being a parable of a gilded age, is also meant to be an example of what happens when a man loses control of his checkbook.

 Article Author Kevin Roose goes through Gatsby's finances with a fine-tooth comb and comes out the other end with a less-than-startling realization: Jay Gatsby spent a lot of money. Even by today's standards, the amount of excess present in the West Egg in the fictionalize 1920's was remarkable. Here's a quick breakdown of the kind of life the titular character of Fitzgerald's classic lived:

Parties: $165,000
House Downpayment: $1,000,000
House Monthly payments for the duration of the novel: $161,000
The famous Rolls Royce: $15,000
Boats (got to get to that glowing green light somehow): $10,000
Clothes (especially when you go around throwing them off balconies, making it rain Euopean cotton): $2,000 Miscellaneous Expenses: $25,000
Total: $1.378 million

Now, let's look at what kind of money Gatsby was pulling in during that same time period in order to pay for that kind of excess (according, again, to the author's calculations):

Bootlegging: $1 million
Side Projects at $100,000/year (this is according to Tom's comment to Nick early on in the novel): $250,000
Total: $1.25 million

Difference: -$128,000

That's right: Gatsby was in debt. Just like hundreds of thousands of today's cash-strapped college students, and most of the American population, the Great One owed money to someone. A considerable amount, too.

But that was the point! Gatsby was out to prove something, to himself, to his naysayers, to his past, and, most of all, to the lost love of his life, Daisy. He had to flash to be seen, and what better way to flash than to explode. And like any explosion, there's always going to be something to clean up afterward. Had the man (SPOILER ALERT) lived past the confines of the novel, I'm sure he would have answered to his creditors at some point in his life. As the novel stands, though, Jay is allowed to remain the pinnacle of American excess, all in the name of an otherwise unattainable (in his mind, at least) goal of love.

As the author of the article also indicates, the lavish life that Gatsby made for himself was not uncommon for the time period. Even the author, Fitzgerald himself, was known to live beyond his means, spending large amount of cash on parties and frivolities. Bootleggers, stocks-and-bondsmen, and anyone deep in the trenches of the "Golden Age" saw fit to spend everything that came in, to let the money fly out just as easily as it seemed to fly toward them.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I'm not entirely surprised at the findings. I think that any reader would notice that monetary values are rarely mentioned in the novel. Instead, we are given vague details of grand excess, with only scant information coming to our narrator, Nick. And I believe it was posed this way for a reason: we are supposed to be just as enamored with Gatsby's ability to spend (and bring in) as Nick was. We are supposed to see Gatsby as the lion of his age, the ultimate expression of a way of life that cannot last. And in his demise, we are supposed to see the frailty of this type of existence. Putting number values on everything would damage the point being made. The Great Gatsby is "great" simply because he is unknowable. To know him would be to make him a man, to bring him back down to earth, where he does not belong.

So, we let him live that way for a 100-odd pages of a novel, watching helplessly as we hope for redemption and fail to find any for this doomed character. We see that blinding green light out beyond the peer, and secretly hope that Jay will find his way there one day, but ultimately knowing that it's beyond his -- and our own -- grasp. Instead, our modern-day Icarus must fall back to Earth with the rest of us, wishing that someone (Daisy, in his case) would see the man behind the greatness, and love that being despite it all.

-JJ

Real-Life Ocean's Eleven

Net closes on the Pink Panther robbery gang (via The Teleagraph)

No, it's not the plot for the next heist movie, although it sounds like something you've already seen in theaters. This is a real, operating gang of thieves, bent on pumping their pockets full of stolen money, jewels, and anything else they can get their hands on. 

Here's an excerpt from the article that reads like the tagline for next summer's big blockbuster staring John Malkovich and Kevin Spacey (speaking of which, why hasn't the movie I just described not been made yet?):

"The criminal gang is a transnational crime group believed to include at least 200 individuals responsible for more than 90 robberies in 19 countries since 1999, with the value of stolen jewellery estimated at well over 100 million Euros," said an Interpol spokesman.

 And here's a quick list of some of the heists that they've pulled off (I love writing that statement in reference to a non-fictional occurrence):

• Paris, 2004: The gang stole 11 million pounds (the currency, not the unit of weight measurement) worth of gems while the police force in the area was distracted by a visit by the prime minister's wife.
• Cannes: In order to keep spectators from witnessing their covert operation inside of a jewelry store, they painted the a public bench directly across from the storefront.
• St. Tropez: They use a FREAKING SPEEDBOAT to evade the police, who were hopelessly and hilariously stuck in traffic.
• London, 2003: They pulled off Britain's largest and most successful diamond heist when they raiding Graff's on New Bond Street. This is the one that gave them their name, as the stolen diamond (worth 500,000 pounds) was found in a jar of facial cream, a discovery reminiscent of the 1963 film, The Pink Panther.
• Tokyo, 2004: Riding in on bikes and using tear gas to distract shoppers, the masked vigilantes made off with the Comtesse de Vendome, "a 125-carat necklace of 116 diamonds worth around £20 million."

However, in the last few weeks, at least four suspected members of the organization have been captured by detectives. 

But good luck keeping them behind bars: In a now infamous (and just as "Hollywood") incident, a member of the gang escaped prison out of a window using a fold-able ladder while his accomplices fired at the guard tower with machine guns.

And American cinema can't make a movie that isn't a sequel or adaptation. Real life, people: it's where the action lies.

-JJ