Bayard
Bayard's JournalWatch this 89-year-old juke his way to a touchdown!
Mysterious carvings and evidence of human sacrifice uncovered in ancient city
Discoveries at the sprawling site have archaeologists rethinking the roots of Chinese civilization.
THE STONES DIDN’T give up their secrets easily. For decades, villagers in the dust-blown hills of China’s Loess Plateau believed that the crumbling rock walls near their homes were part of the Great Wall. It made sense. Remnants of the ancient barrier zigzag through this arid region inside the northern loop of the Yellow River, marking the frontier of Chinese rule stretching back more than 2,000 years.
But one detail was curiously out of place: Locals, and then looters, began finding in the rubble pieces of jade, some fashioned into discs and blades and scepters. Jade is not indigenous to this northernmost part of Shaanxi Province—the nearest source is almost a thousand miles away—and it was not a known feature of the Great Wall. Why was it showing up in abundance in this barren region so close to the Ordos Desert?
When a team of Chinese archaeologists came to investigate the conundrum several years ago, they began to unearth something wondrous and puzzling. The stones were not part of the Great Wall but the ruins of a magnificent fortress city. The ongoing dig has revealed more than six miles of protective walls surrounding a 230-foot-high pyramid and an inner sanctum with painted murals, jade artifacts—and gruesome evidence of human sacrifice.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/08/mysterious-carvings-evidence-human-sacrifice-uncovered-ancient-city-china/?cmpid=org=ngp::mc=crm-email::src=ngp::cmp=editorial::add=History_20200810&rid=2D7EBD8232363870D75E126868635ACF
Really fascinating article and photos.
Archaeologists discover first evidence for polo--on donkeys
Bones from a 1,150-year-old tomb in China show that the animals served as much more than beasts of burden.
Polo is known as the “sport of kings,” a challenging equestrian pastime that has amused aristocrats for centuries. But well-heeled polo players didn’t always ride horses. New research confirms that an ancient Chinese noblewoman likely played the game on donkeys instead—and enjoyed the pursuit so much, she was buried with her prized charges.
Researchers from China and the United States describe the find in the latest issue of the archaeological journal Antiquity. It’s the first physical evidence for this species-specific variation of the sport known as ljvu that has been described in contemporary chronicles and portrayed in art, but never confirmed in the archaeological record until now.
Polo is thought to have evolved from equestrian games developed by nomads in central Asia. Though there is archaeological evidence for a predecessor of the sport in China from approximately 2,400 years ago, the game, in which teams of horse-mounted riders compete to knock a ball into a goal, skyrocketed in popularity a millennium later during the Tang Dynasty (A.D. 618-907).
References to horse polo abound in Tang Dynasty art and literature, and many Tang-era tombs feature polo-related artifacts and art, including mausoleum murals and ceramic figurines. But scholars of the period have always been curious about a subset of ancient polo depictions that seemingly show donkeys, not horses, on the field in a game called ljvu.
“There are many examples of Chinese artwork depicting women, that one would assume were of higher status, playing polo on donkeys,” says Brenda Lynn, a spokesperson for the Museum of Polo.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/03/archaeologists-discover-evidence-donkey-polo/
My donkeys were pleased to learn they formerly held a much higher status level.
Wildlife deaths from coronavirus disinfectant use alarm scientists
In Chongqing, China, at least 135 animals were poisoned—evidence that cities should regulate spraying in public areas, biologists argue.
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, public health officials believed that one of the most effective ways to fight the spread of the virus was to disinfect highly touched surfaces.
That led China, South Korea, France, Spain, and several other countries to spray copious amounts of disinfectant throughout densely populated urban areas. Fleets of trucks, drones, and even robots doused streets, parks, playgrounds, and other outdoor public spaces with virus-killing chemicals.
In Indonesia, drones drenched homes in disinfectant from above. And in one village in Spain, tractors dumped hundreds of gallons of bleach onto a public beach.
Infectious-disease experts, including the World Health Organization, have since denounced the practice as both ineffective and a potential health hazard to people, in particular respiratory irritation from inhaling the chemicals. Combining disinfectants, such as bleach and ammonia, could also release potentially fatal gases, WHO warned.
And this month, biologists joined in, claiming in a new commentary in the journal Environmental Research that the indiscriminate use of such substances in urban settings poses a significant danger to wildlife. (Learn more about COVID-19’s impact on the environment.)
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/08/disinfectant-public-cities-pandemic-urban-wildlife-cvd/?cmpid=org=ngp::mc=crm-email::src=ngp::cmp=editorial::add=SpecialEdition_20200807&rid=2D7EBD8232363870D75E126868635ACF
This isn't much better than when the virus first broke out, Chinese officials had officers going around confiscating peoples' pets to put them down, thinking they were spreading it. Horrifying!
Sierra Club's Endorses Joe Biden
This November, we can change the trajectory of the climate crisis in electing a leader who will fight for all of us and our planet -- Vice President Joe Biden."
As people across the country protest in defense of Black lives, the Sierra Club recognizes the need to dismantle systemic racism in the United States and within our own organization. We must reckon with how white supremacy -- both past and present -- has shaped our institutions and do the critical anti-racism work necessary to repair the harm done. The environmental movement does not exist in a vacuum, and it is our responsibility to use our power to help abolish systemic racism, which is destroying lives, communities, and the planet.
The 2020 election may be the most consequential in the Sierra Club's 128-year history.
Donald Trump serves the fossil fuel industry and stands in the way of protecting our public health, our democracy, and the planet. Four years of Trump's divisive, racist tactics, and nearly 100 environmental rollbacks led by his administration have taught us that we will not be able to prevent climate catastrophe and advance social justice as long as he occupies the White House.
To bring about real change in just 85 days, we need a champion instead of a tyrant. Someone who will listen to the people. A president who respects checks and balances. Above all, a person who can protect our lives and make them better.
We are with Vice President Joe Biden because he has shown he can listen to many voices, adapts when called to, and has the leadership experience to address the most urgent crises facing our country. These traits helped merit the Sierra Club's presidential endorsement, which selects the advocate in the Oval Office we can work with best and who we can and will challenge.
Endorsing Biden is our most meaningful move in this election cycle to-date, and we recognize many in the Sierra Club community are wrestling with this choice just like we did. We too felt inspired by the most progressive and diverse presidential field in history. Ultimately though, we know allowing Donald Trump to win a second term is a disaster for our movement. We must ensure its end.
So for the first time ever, we polled our members and supporters about the Sierra Club's role in making a presidential endorsement. We are moving forward confidently because 95% of respondents want us to endorse Biden. We also feel a responsibility to continue pushing Biden on our priorities when more than 20% of those who favored his endorsement still have some reservations.
The 2020 election may be the most consequential in the Sierra Club's 128-year history.
Donald Trump serves the fossil fuel industry and stands in the way of protecting our public health, our democracy, and the planet. Four years of Trump's divisive, racist tactics, and nearly 100 environmental rollbacks led by his administration have taught us that we will not be able to prevent climate catastrophe and advance social justice as long as he occupies the White House.
To bring about real change in just 85 days, we need a champion instead of a tyrant. Someone who will listen to the people. A president who respects checks and balances. Above all, a person who can protect our lives and make them better.
That's why the Sierra Club is endorsing Vice President Joe Biden for President. Join us in supporting his 2020 candidacy for president today.
We are with Vice President Joe Biden because he has shown he can listen to many voices, adapts when called to, and has the leadership experience to address the most urgent crises facing our country. These traits helped merit the Sierra Club's presidential endorsement, which selects the advocate in the Oval Office we can work with best and who we can and will challenge.
Endorsing Biden is our most meaningful move in this election cycle to-date, and we recognize many in the Sierra Club community are wrestling with this choice just like we did. We too felt inspired by the most progressive and diverse presidential field in history. Ultimately though, we know allowing Donald Trump to win a second term is a disaster for our movement. We must ensure its end.
So for the first time ever, we polled our members and supporters about the Sierra Club's role in making a presidential endorsement. We are moving forward confidently because 95% of respondents want us to endorse Biden. We also feel a responsibility to continue pushing Biden on our priorities when more than 20% of those who favored his endorsement still have some reservations.
You have influenced today's decision and reminded us through this process why our organization, working together, makes us so strong and lasting.
Add your name to join the Sierra Club's endorsement and make it clear that climate voters like you will help defeat Donald Trump in November.
We have witnessed Biden's evolution in this process. While he is known as a decades-long environmental champion, he has sought the input and challenge of top progressive leaders and climate activists to form the boldest climate action plan we have ever seen from a presidential nominee.
His plan aims to tackle the climate crisis by attacking the roots of racial and climate justice. With only 10 years left to stop the worst climate impacts, this is the work most important to us. We cannot let polluters get away with sacrificing Black, Indigenous, and communities of color any longer. We need a president determined to dismantle the inherent racism that creates disposable people and places.
Sierra Club Independent Action will do everything we can to forge this path with Biden. And if we are successful in defeating Trump, our work will continue to hold Biden accountable to his commitments.
This November, change the trajectory of the climate crisis and elect a leader who will fight for all of us and our planet -- join in supporting the Sierra Club's endorsement of Joe Biden today.
I am looking forward to the day that Donald Trump's chaotic, self-absorbed, anti-science agenda ends and we have more freedom to explore the Sierra Club's mission for a healthy, safe, sustainable planet for all. That chance to keep organizing the public and exert our grassroots influence even more with a drastic shift in leadership is giving me hope today.
I know it can happen with people like you, Lye, making themselves a part of this discussion, even those simply reading this update now and wondering what's next. Together, we'll stay vigilant in this fight and stay the course to win real improvements in people's lives and their communities.
Let's do what we all need to do to elect Joe Biden, and do the work now,
Ramon Cruz
Board President, Sierra Club
From Sierra Club email.
Exhausted? Top Therapists On Fighting 'Pandemic Fatigue'
Our mental health crisis has recently… exploded. Renowned therapists Lori Gottlieb and Guy Winch, are here to help: “We want people to hear they aren’t alone.” Their new podcast, Dear Therapists, brings listeners into sessions where they guide people through difficult personal situations — like a teacher who’s struggling with her inability to help her students right now. Lori and Guy weigh in on the project, fighting “pandemic fatigue,” and more, below.
Lori and Guy, your new show Dear Therapists is launching right at a time when many Americans are experiencing increased mental health distress. What would you say to those of us struggling with this new normal?
One of the reasons we feel like this podcast is so relevant at this particular moment is that we want people to hear that they aren’t alone. It’s such a basic human need — whether in “normal” times or during a global pandemic — for people to feel: I see you. I hear you. I understand you. And yet often we keep so much of ourselves hidden because we feel like either we should have it all together because we’re under the misguided impression that everyone else does, or because we minimize our pain.
The thinking might go that if I have a roof over my head and food on the table, then my sadness or anxiety or relationship issue isn’t “that bad” compared to people who seemingly have it worse. We don’t do that with our physical health. If you break your leg, you don’t say, I’m not going to get this treated because somebody with, say, cancer, has it worse. We need to treat our emotional health the same way — if you’re not feeling well, get that checked out. … We’re inviting people into these conversations about what it means to be human, letting them be a fly on the wall in our sessions that normally only we have the privilege of witnessing.
Some people are experiencing what’s being referred to as “pandemic fatigue.” First, could you explain what exactly the term encompasses? And what are some things we can do to take care of ourselves during this time?
The thing about the pandemic is that it’s not a discrete stressor with a clear beginning and end. We are living in ambiguity — how long will this go on? And how do our circumstances change week to week or month to month?
So, first, we have to have a lot of self-compassion and notice how we talk to ourselves. Do you know who the person is that you talk to the most in the course of your life? It’s not your partner, or parent, or best friend, or sibling. It’s you! And often what we say to yourselves isn’t kind, or true, or helpful. We need to give ourselves a break and acknowledge how hard it is to endure a stressor with no clear end in sight.
And then we need to look at how we frame this story for ourselves. For instance, we aren’t isolated in a dark jail cell in solitary confinement. We need to be physically distanced, but we can still walk outside, Facetime with a friend 24/7, catch up on our reading, laugh with family or friends. And maybe this is a time when we really look at our lives with more intention and shift our priorities — what’s meaningful and what can you let go of, not just now, but as we emerge from this.
We should also pay attention to how we label what we’re feeling. We keep using the word anxiety in a negative way, but there are two kinds of anxiety: productive anxiety and unproductive anxiety. We can turn our anxiety into something productive (using our worry to take actions such as hand-washing, social distancing, sending meals to elderly relatives, or calling a neighbor who lives alone) or unproductive (spending all day clicking on the latest coronavirus headlines).
One thing we do in the podcast is help listeners to edit their stories. We’re all unreliable narrators, and when people present us with their story, we help them to see it from a new perspective, which in turn helps them to have agency and make positive changes in their lives.
https://medium.com/wake-up-call/exhausted-top-therapists-on-fighting-pandemic-fatigue-1ab6ebd17885
I know I can barely watch the news anymore.
The World's first VR and AR laptop
This is the zSpace by zSpace, Inc., a hardware/software solution that delivers a stunning interactive experience by integrating augmented and virtual technology using a laptop, a pair of polarized glasses, and a zSpace stylus. Students in the medical, engineering, and veterinary fields especially benefit from this type of learning.
Each zSpace system has tracking sensors built into the display, which track your zSpace stylus and glasses. While observing an object, as you tilt your head, zSpace automatically updates to display the correct perspective in full, high-definition. There are two types of eyewear used in the zSpace system – Tracked Glasses and Follower glasses. Tracked Glasses provide a complete experience, while Follower Glasses allow peers to join in and participate.
The zSpace stylus allows users to rotate their wrist naturally as they pick up and examine objects. The buttons on the stylus perform different actions depending on the application.
Check out the amazing editing on this Nike ad
Historian uses lasers to unlock mysteries of Gothic cathedrals
Thirteen million people visit the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris every year, entering through massive wooden doors at the base of towers as solidly planted as mountains. They stand in front of walls filigreed with stained glass and gaze at a ceiling supported by delicate ribs of stone.
If its beauty and magnificence is instantly apparent, so much about Notre Dame is not. To begin with, we don't know who built this cathedral—or how. (Discover the 800-year history of Notre Dame Cathedral.)
The bishop of Paris, Maurice de Sully, commissioned the massive church complex around 1160. Yet the names of those who first constructed this masterpiece are lost to history. They left no records—only centuries of speculation—behind.
"So much ink has been spilled over that building," says art historian Andrew Tallon. "So much of it is completely wrong."
A former composer, would-be monk, and self-described gearhead—or, as he puts it, "tacklehead"—Tallon intends to make that history right. With the help of 21st-century laser scanners, he is teasing out clues hidden in the ancient stones of Notre Dame and other medieval structures—and revolutionizing our understanding of how these spectacular buildings were made.
One Billion Points of Data
Tallon, who died Nov. 18, 2018, at 49, wasn't the first to realize that laser scanners could be used to deconstruct Gothic architecture. But he was the first to use the scans to get inside medieval builders' heads.
"Every building moves," he says. "It heaves itself out of shape when foundations move, when the sun heats up on one side." How the building moves reveals its original design and the choices that the master builder had to make when construction didn't go as planned. Tracking this thought process requires precise measurements. (See vintage pictures of the cathedral from Nat Geo's archive.)
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/06/150622-andrew-tallon-notre-dame-cathedral-laser-scan-art-history-medieval-gothic/?cmpid=org=ngp::mc=crm-email::src=ngp::cmp=editorial::add=SpecialEdition_Escape_20200805&rid=2D7EBD8232363870D75E126868635ACF
Much more at link, including beautiful photos (that are copywrited).
Profile Information
Gender: Do not displayHome country: U.S.
Member since: Tue Dec 29, 2015, 03:16 PM
Number of posts: 22,075
