| Birdman/Bandman: A Q&A with Shearwater's Jonathan Meiburg Listening to the music of the Austin, Tex.–band Shearwater, you get the sense that it has a bird fetish. In general, the group's lyrics are distinctly naturalist--painting pictures of wildlife and untouched ecosystems--but birds tend to appear in these narratives more often than other animals. In fact, the majority of the group's album covers are avian-themed, and the band's name itself refers to a seabird with especially long wings.Almost all of this bird business is the work of the group's singer/songwriter, Jonathan Meiburg. A tall, skinny, unfailingly polite guy with a gentle voice--both speaking and singing--he powers both Shearwater's soaring songs and its avian aesthetic. But, Meiburg is no fetishist when it comes to birds--he doesn't just walk around town with binoculars and a copy of The Sibley Guide to Birds looking for feathered friends aloft in the sky or perched in trees. Meiburg has had fully immersive experiences, tracking birds on remote islands where he--or any other human, for that matter--is a rarity. [More] rss.sciam.com |
Hutterites Are Model Gene Community [The following is an exact transcript of this podcast.]You may have heard of genetic research being done in Iceland. It’s a rich venue, because Icelanders have a limited gene pool and highly detailed genealogical records. Well, it looks like we have our own version of Icelanders here in the U.S. They’re called the Hutterites, and they live in rural South Dakota. Researchers from the University of Chicago and Northwestern have been studying the Hutterites for decades. Almost 1,300 members of the community emigrated from Germany to South Dakota in 1874. Today they number in the tens of thousands. They live similar communal farming lifestyles, so they experience common environmental influences. [More] rss.sciam.com |
Largest Snake Rattles Paleontology [The following is an exact transcript of this podcast.]Indiana Jones (“I hate snakes--I hate ‘em!”) would have totally despised a snake that lived some 60 million years ago. Because researchers working in Colombia have found the fossil remains of a snake that would have been up to 45 feet long, weighing in at perhaps 2,500 pounds. That makes it the biggest snake ever to have slithered across the Earth. The announcement appears in the February 5th issue of the journal Nature. The creature has been dubbed Titanoboa. [More] rss.sciam.com |
Billy the Kid arrested for first time On this day in 1875, Billy the Kid is arrested for the first time after stealing a basket of laundry. He later broke out of jail and roamed the American West, eventually earning a reputation as an outlaw and murderer and a rap sheet that allegedly included 21 murders.The exact details of Billy the Kid's birth are unknown, other than his name, William Henry McCarty. He was probably born sometime between 1859 and 1861, in Indiana or New York. As a child, he had no relationship with his father and moved around with his family, living in Indiana, Kansas, Colorado and Silver City, New Mexico. His mother died in 1874 and Billy the Kid--who went by a variety of names throughout his life, including Kid Antrim and William Bonney--turned to crime soon afterward.McCarty did a stint as a horse thief in Arizona before returning to New Mexico, where he hooked up with a gang of gunslingers and cattle rustlers involved in the notorious Lincoln County War between rival rancher and merchant factions in Lincoln County in 1878. Afterward, Billy the Kid, who had a slender build, prominent crooked front teeth and a love of singing, went on the lam and continued his outlaw's life, stealing cattle and horses, gambling and killing people. His crimes earned him a bounty on his head and he was eventually captured and indicted for killing a sheriff during the Lincoln County War. Billy the Kid was sentenced to hang for his crime; however, a short time later, he managed another jail break, murdering two deputies in the process. Billy the Kid's freedom was brief, as Sheriff Pat Garrett caught up with the desperado at Fort Sumner, New Mexico, on July 14, 1881, and fatally shot him.Although his life was short, Billy the Kid's legend grew following his death. Today he is a famous symbol of the Old West, along with such men as Kit Carson, Jesse James, Wild Bill Hickok, Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp, and his story has been mythologized and romanticized in numerous films, books, TV shows and songs. Each year, tourists visit the town of Fort Sumner, located about 160 miles southeast of Albuquerque, to see the Billy the Kid Museum and gravesite. history.com |
John Adams appointed to negotiate peace terms with British On this day in 1779, the Continental Congress appoints John Adams to travel to France as minister plenipotentiary in charge of negotiating treaties of peace and commerce with Great Britain during the Revolutionary War.Adams had traveled to Paris in 1778 to negotiate an alliance with France, but had been unceremoniously dismissed when Congress chose Benjamin Franklin as sole commissioner. Soon after returning to Massachusetts in mid-1779, Adams was elected as a delegate to the state convention to draw up a new constitution; he was involved in these duties when he learned of his new diplomatic commission. Accompanied by his young sons John Quincy and Charles, Adams sailed for Europe that November aboard the French ship Sensible, which sprang a leak early in the voyage and missed its original destination (Brest), instead landing at El Ferrol, in northwestern Spain. After an arduous journey by mule train across the Pyrenees and into France, Adams and his group reached Paris in early February 1780.While in Paris, Adams wrote to Congress almost daily (sometimes several letters a day) sharing news about British politics, British and French naval activities and his general perspective on European affairs. Conditions were unfavorable for peace at the time, as the war was going badly for the Continental Army, and the blunt and sometimes confrontational Adams clashed with the French government, especially the powerful Foreign Minister Charles Gravier, Comte de Vergennes. In mid-June, Adams began a correspondence with Vergennes in which he pushed for French naval assistance, antagonizing both Vergennes and Franklin, who brought the matter to the attention of Congress.By that time, Adams had departed France for Holland, where he was attempting to negotiate a loan from the Dutch. Before the end of the year, he was named American minister to the Netherlands, replacing Henry Laurens, who was captured at sea by the British. In June 1781, capitulating to pressure from Vergennes and other French diplomats, Congress acted to revoke Adams' sole powers as peacemaker with Britain, appointing Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay and Laurens to negotiate alongside him.The tide of the war was turning in America's favor, and Adams returned to Paris in October 1782 to take up his part in the peace negotiations. As Jefferson didn't travel to Europe and Laurens was in failing health after his release from the Tower of London, it was left to Adams, Jay and Franklin to represent American interests. Adams and Jay both distrusted the French government (in contrast with Franklin), but their differences of opinion and diplomatic styles allowed the team to negotiate favorable terms in the Peace of Paris (1783). The following year, Jefferson arrived to take Adams' place as American minister to France, forming a lifelong bond with Adams and his family before the latter left to take up his new post as American ambassador to London and continue his distinguished record of foreign service on behalf of the new nation. history.com |