Radiation and phylogeny of Bantu languages

The concepts of evolution (change over time and descent with modification) are used in tracing the developments of language families. Africa Science quotes a paper on Bantu Languages.

Meme tag rag

I’ve been tagged by the Tangled Up in Blue Guy, Mike Haubrich, to tell seven weird or random things about me. So here goes:

1. I’m the wrong person for marketing focus groups. If I like something, it will be taken off the market because not enough people like it.
2. I have registered more than 5,000 books at BookCrossing.com to give them unique ID numbers. Of those books, about 1,000 are “in the wild.”
3. I’ve seen bald eagles, three or four species of hummingbirds, clapper rails, a sora, scarlet tanagers, and black skimmers.
4. I didn’t learn about J.S. Bach until I was 21. That’s a deprived childhood!
5. I daydream about reduction mammoplasty. (You try tying a pair of running shoes around your neck and leaving them there for the rest of your life.)
6. Ironically for a technical writer, I’m quite paperwork-challenged.
7. It’s a random and small world: I’ve met Stephen Jay Gould, Jane Goodall, Pierre Berton, and Sir Harold Kroto; and at my last contract I worked with a man who had worked for Tuzo Wilson.
8. In 1991, I travelled to Costa Rica to see a solar eclipse.

New California Academy of Sciences building

The California Academy of Sciences is starting to install exhibits in its new science building. The science museum is in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, California, U.S. Follow the link for a photo gallery.

• Most of the pictures are of the new Rain Forest building, which will have a living roof.
• There will also be a planetarium.
• An aquarium will hold the deepest coral reef in the world.
• Architectural elements of the old building are being preserved in the new building.

To me, it looks like an interior designed by Raymond Moriyama.

Is SAD sub-clinical hibernation?

I don’t have Seasonal Affective Disorder – depression caused by the darkness of winter. However, it always made sense to me that people are reluctant to rise in the dark, slow to go out in the cold, and generally more willing to snuggle in a warm place with our stored-up food supply.

Now, new research is suggesting that the same mechanisms for secreting melatonin are at work in SAD and in animals’ seasonal behaviour. Melatonin is a chemical secreted during the hours of darkness by the pineal gland.

Treatment with light or negative ions can help against SAD.

A Kitzmas Karol

The Innoculated Mind has published an article on the anniversary of the Kitzmiller vs. Dover decision, making Dec. 20 Kitzmas Day. It’s called “A Kitzmas Karol“. (You can jump straight to the poem, here.)