Odd News

[Denny]

Materials Science: One Size Cloaks All

ScienceDaily (Nov. 20, 2012) — A metamaterial invisibility cloak that can adapt to hide different sized objects is demonstrated by in Nature Communications this week. The findings represent a useful advance for more practical applications of metamaterial cloaking.

[Denny]

Making Music Together Connects Brains

ScienceDaily (Nov. 29, 2012) — Anyone who has ever played in an orchestra will be familiar with the phenomenon: the impulse for one's own actions does not seem to come from one's own mind alone, but rather seems to be controlled by the coordinated activity of the group. And indeed, interbrain networks do emerge when making music together -- this has now been demonstrated by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. The scientists used electrodes to trace the brain waves of guitarists playing in duets. They also observed substantial differences in the musicians' brain activity, depending upon whether musicians were leading or following their companion.

[Denny]

Linguist Makes Sensational Claim: English Is a Scandinavian Language

ScienceDaily (Nov. 27, 2012) — "Have you considered how easy it is for us Norwegians to learn English?" asks Jan Terje Faarlund, professor of linguistics at the University of Oslo. "Obviously there are many English words that resemble ours. But there is something more: its fundamental structure is strikingly similar to Norwegian. We avoid many of the usual mistakes because the grammar is more or less the same.

[Denny]

Native Americans and Northern Europeans More Closely Related Than Previously Thought

ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2012) — Using genetic analyses, scientists have discovered that Northern European populations -- including British, Scandinavians, French, and some Eastern Europeans -- descend from a mixture of two very different ancestral populations, and one of these populations is related to Native Americans. This discovery helps fill gaps in scientific understanding of both Native American and Northern European ancestry, while providing an explanation for some genetic similarities among what would otherwise seem to be very divergent groups.

[MTGuru]

Linguist Makes Sensational Claim: English Is a Scandinavian Language

Native Americans and Northern Europeans More Closely Related Than Previously Thought

I can't wait for Science Daily's next article by chief anthropology correspondent Hank Himmler, explaining that the Ark of the Covenant was really an Aryan death ray.

[an seanduine]

Linguist Makes Sensational Claim: English Is a Scandinavian Language

ScienceDaily (Nov. 27, 2012) — "Have you considered how easy it is for us Norwegians to learn English?" asks Jan Terje Faarlund, professor of linguistics at the University of Oslo. "Obviously there are many English words that resemble ours. But there is something more: its fundamental structure is strikingly similar to Norwegian. We avoid many of the usual mistakes because the grammar is more or less the same.

Hmmm. Years ago I read The Growth and Structure of the English Language by Otto Jesperson, a Dane, who maintained that Modern Danish was closer to Old English, and early Middle English than modern English was to these older forms. Made sense to me. And since Danske, Svenske, and Norske all have common ancestry this claim is not very farfetched.

Bob

[MTGuru]

Years ago I read The Growth and Structure of the English Language by Otto Jesperson, a Dane, who maintained that Modern Danish was closer to Old English ...

Except that the above article is making exactly the opposite claim. Namely, that Danish/Scandinavian is closer to Modern English as a result of the Danelaw.

In fact, English is a complex creole of West Germanic with Nordic and Norman French on a weak Brythonic Celtic substrate, and explainable in terms of the dynamics of creolization. Any claim that English is "really" Scandinavian, or Romance Latin, or something else is just silly, and probably reveals more about the claimer than about the language.

[Denny]

Manager: Jazz composer, pianist Dave Brubeck dies

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Jazz composer and pianist Dave Brubeck, whose pioneering style in pieces such as "Take Five" caught listeners' ears with exotic, challenging rhythms, has died. He was 91.

Brubeck died Wednesday morning at Norwalk Hospital of heart failure after being stricken while on his way to a cardiology appointment with his son Darius, said his manager Russell Gloyd. Brubeck would have turned 92 on Thursday.

[Denny]

Spider survives trip to outer space but not Washington

The vacuum of space was a minor inconvenience, but the poisonous atmosphere in Washington, D.C., proved too much for the world's first "spidernaut."

After just four days at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, "Nefertiti," a Johnson jumping spider, was found dead in its enclosure. But as the Daily Camera notes, the spider's passing came after it managed to survive a 42-million-mile journey that included 100 days aboard the International Space Station and a landing in the Pacific Ocean.

"That's how it is with living organisms. You just never know," said Stefanie Countryman, manager of K-12 educational projects at the University of Colorado's BioServe Space Technologies. "Someone didn't squish her. It wasn't something someone did. She had been eating well at the Smithsonian and active. There is no other explanation other than that she was reaching the end of her lifespan."

Neffi was 10 months old; the Johnson jumping spider typically lives about a year. While the Smithsonian said the spider of died of natural causes, it also confirmed that no postmortem tests were performed on Neffi.

[Nanohedron]

The vacuum of space was a minor inconvenience, but the poisonous atmosphere in Washington, D.C., proved too much for the world's first "spidernaut."

Misleading. Neffi didn't endure a vacuum, but as an airbreathing organism was of course protected from it within the spacecraft; she was also near the end of her natural life span, and no autopsy is planned (such teensy scalpels!), so the blurb is misleading again.

Getting the real goods from reading the whole of the story doesn't mitigate the casual, and IMO irresponsible, disinformation of the lead sentence. Not for me, anyway. Yeah. Wet blanket, that's me. Sorry. I like my facts straight-up and readily available.

Job openings in the yellow journalism genre must be at a premium. Oh, wait - maybe that's what it was after all.

[MTGuru]

Misleading. Neffi didn't endure a vacuum

No, but tardigrades have done. And they're so darn cute! Who's my roly-poly little water bear? You are, yes, you!

[Nanohedron]

Awww. I want one.

[Denny]

Job openings in the yellow journalism genre must be at a premium. Oh, wait - maybe that's what it was after all.

got a job doesn't he

[rorybbellows]

I dont spend alot of time in the post pub,its mostly spent on the Uilleann pipe forum.
But when I did pop into the pub for a look, one thing that would always make me smile is the amount of times I would see Denny's name in the authors colum.Well when reality bites and you know you're not going to see his name there anymore, its sad.
I thought if I see his name there one more time it might make me smile, and it did.
Maybe ever now and again someone will bring his name up on to the top page again just to remind us.

RORY

[rachie_ray]

I thought if I see his name there one more time it might make me smile, and it did.

RORY

I had never known about this forum until my dad was so ill he was unresponsive, seeing a post published by him and seeing all the posts of people who spoke with him often and miss him makes me smile as well... Thank you all for this forum and for keeping him alive for me.

-Rachael Ray