First There Was The Bible Code, Now There Is Plato’s Code

I’m not sure what to make of this especially because it is the first I have heard about a code in Plato’s work.

Four Stone Hearth Vol 95

Gasp, Gasp, Pant, Pant, Pant Phew, a little short of breath. Apparently, threatening to hold your breath until you get submissions really works! At least some of you didn’t want me to suffer the ill effects of oxygen deprivation (looks sternly at those who didn’t contribute).

I received an interesting mix of submissions and will start with the Cultural Anthropology. I’ve pulled some quotes, that I find interesting, from each post but don’t let that stop you from clicking over and reading the entire post as there is much more of interest to be found.

Holding My Breath Until I Get More Four Stone Hearth Submissions

The Four Stone Hearth is tomorrow. Please don’t make me go without oxygen that long…

Begging for an Article: Again

Can some one send me a copy of this article? Here is the abstract – which is very interesting:

Only one partial skeleton that includes both forelimb and hindlimb elements has been reported for Australopithecus afarensis. The diminutive size of this specimen (A.L. 288-1 [“Lucy”]) has hampered our understanding of the paleobiology of this species absent the potential impact of allometry. Here we describe a large-bodied (i.e., well within the range of living Homo) specimen that, at 3.58 Ma, also substantially antedates A.L. 288–1. It provides fundamental evidence of limb proportions, thoracic form, and locomotor heritage in Australopithecus afarensis. Together, these characteristics further establish that bipedality in Australopithecus was highly evolved and that thoracic form differed substantially from that of either extant African ape.

I have the article now. Thanks!

Four Stone Hearth

Just a frinedly reminder that I will be hosting the Four Stone Hearth on Wednesday. Send your submissions – or nominate others!

Couldn’t Have Said It Better Myself

Or by Republicans…

The Genetics of the Mouse Hypothalamus

This is really interesting! From Science Daily:

The team’s first challenge was to dissect away, at the very start of neural development, the part of the mouse brain which develops into the hypothalamus, and then cut tiny slices of this region for use in microarray analysis, a technology that reveals multiple gene activity. By analyzing all the roughly 20,000 genes in the mouse genome, the team identified 1200 as strongly activated in developing hypothalamus and characterized the cells within the hypothalamus in which they were activated. The team then characterized the expression of the most interesting 350 genes in detail using another gene called Shh, for sonic hedgehog, as a landmark to identify the precise region of the hypothalamus in which these genes were turned on. This involved processing close to 20,000 tissue sections — painstakingly sliced at one-fiftieth of a millimeter thickness and then individually examined.

“We were able to use this data to find genes whose expression matched every individual hypothalamic nucleus and essentially assemble a jigsaw puzzle of gene expression patterns that completely covered the developing hypothalamus,” Blackshaw says. “Now that we have a complete set of molecular landmarks, along with an extensive molecular parts list, we can begin to learn how all these parts fit together to create this essential and highly complex brain region.

I would say the paper is available here but the link to the paper on that page is broken…or something…

Blogs of Note: Anthropology Writing At Its Finest

I have a rather large list of anthropology blogs in my blogroll and I don’t always get to visit each blog as frequently as I would like. When I do visit one I have checked out in awhile I am always amazed at the quality of anthropology writing on the web. A case in point is Anna’s Bones. Take this post for example:

In my minstrel-like outfit, I sat down next to her and took a breath. I placed my hand on her shoulder and said: “relax, this doesn’t matter. You need to breathe and have some perspective over this. This counts for nothing for your mark. This doesn’t count for anything for your academic record. But mostly, it doesn’t say anything about you and it doesn’t count for anything important for your life. You can finish this some other time. Just breathe.” She wiped her tears and became calm. Between apologies and thank you’s, she handed me her half empty lab book to be filled at some other time in the future. I wasn’t sure who I had just spoken to: to a young undergraduate student, to myself at 18, to myself now. But mostly, I had no idea what it was I thought didn’t matter so much: the unfinished exercises, others’ mistakes, my mistakes, people, or the heavy key chain around my neck.

Thanks BP: Part II

Multiple cameras on JPL’s MISR instrument on NASA’s Terra spacecraft were used to create two unique views of oil moving into Louisiana’s coastal wetlands.

In the right hand photo the oil is the black splotches at the bottom. On the left it is the bright, shiny area on the bottom center of the photo.

Source: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-188

Also

A NASA satellite image recorded May 24 showing areas of oil approaching the Mississippi River delta, shown in false color to improve contrast

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100607092141.htm

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100607092141 large

WTF Kind of Sick Bastards Live in Arizona?

I ask because of This:

R.E. Wall, director of Prescott’s Downtown Mural Project, said he and other artists were subjected to slurs from motorists as they worked on the painting at one of the town’s most prominent intersections.

“We consistently, for two months, had people shouting racial slander from their cars,” Wall said. “We had children painting with us, and here come these yells of (epithet for Blacks) and (epithet for Hispanics).”

*snip*

City Councilman Steve Blair spearheaded a public campaign on his talk show at Prescott radio station KYCA-AM (1490) to remove the mural.

In a broadcast last month, according to the Daily Courier in Prescott, Blair mistakenly complained that the most prominent child in the painting is African-American, saying: “To depict the biggest picture on the building as a Black person, I would have to ask the question: Why?”

Blair could not be reached for comment Thursday. In audio archives of his radio show, Blair discusses the mural. He insists the controversy isn’t about racism but says the mural is intended to create racial controversy where none existed before.

“Personally, I think it’s pathetic,” he says. “You have changed the ambience of that building to excite some kind of diversity power struggle that doesn’t exist in Prescott, Arizona. And I’m ashamed of that.”

The children in the painting were based on photographs of four children that attend the school…