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Carrion Luggage  Native to the Americas, the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) travels widely in search of sustenance. While usually foraging alone, it relies on other individuals of its species for companionship and mutual protection. Sometimes misunderstood, sometimes feared, sometimes shunned, it nevertheless performs an important role in the ecosystem. This scavenger bird is a marvel of efficiency. Rather than expend energy flapping its wings, it instead locates uplifting columns of air, and spirals within them in order to glide to greater heights. This behavior has been mistaken for opportunism, interpreted as if it is circling doomed terrestrial animals destined to be its next meal. In truth, the vulture takes advantage of these thermals to gain the altitude needed glide longer distances, flying not out of necessity, but for the joy of it. It also avoids the exertion necessary to capture live prey, preferring instead to feast upon that which is already dead. In this behavior, it resembles many humans. It is not what most of us would consider to be a pretty bird. While its habits are often off-putting, or even disgusting, to members of more fastidious species, the turkey vulture helps to keep the environment from being clogged with detritus. Hence its Latin binomial, which translates to English as "golden purifier." I rarely know where the winds will take me next, or what I might find there. The journey is the destination. |
| From aeon, an article that might put you to sleep. If it doesn't, my comments probably will. What sleep is  It is our biggest blind spot, a bizarre experience that befalls us every day, and canât be explained by our need for rest After decades of research, there is still no clearly articulated scientific consensus on what sleep is or why it exists. This is a good thing. It leaves room for future discoveries. Also, when we finally do figure out sleep, someone else will figure out a way to project ads into dreams, and I don't want to be alive for that. Discussed exclusively in utilitarian terms, we are force-fed the idea that sleep exists solely for our immediate benefit. Is this really all we ever want to know about a third of our existence? Sleep is perhaps the biggest blind spot, or the longest blind stretch, if you will, of our life. Oh, I don't know about that. I've had articles in here before about consciousness, and there's no scientific consensus about that, either. I feel like if we had a handle on one, we'd have some clues about the other, but what do I know? However, in my opinion, to say sleep is important is to miss the point entirely. Sleep is the single most bizarre experience that happens to all of us, against our will, every day. For various definitions of "against our will." As far as I'm concerned, consciousness and wakefulness happen against our will. The predominant view is that sleep provides some sort of restoration for the brain or the body: what goes awry â out of balance â in waking is almost magically recalibrated by sleep. It is true that I sometimes refer to getting some sleep as "rebooting." Like a snake eating its own tail, waking and sleep consume each other in an endless cycle, without beginning or end. There is no mercy, and lack of sleep can be paid back only by sleep. The image of burning a candle at both ends endures. I used to doodle a candle burning on both ends and also in the middle. You know, back in college, when I had to pull all-nighters just to stay on the treadmill. We live on a half-asleep planet where, speaking of our species alone, at any given time close to 2 billion people may be asleep. Can't resist the urge to point out the discrepancy here: 2 billion isn't even close to half of us. I do understand poetic license, however. Not surprisingly, echoing Aristotleâs view of it as âa privation of wakingâ, sleep is typically defined by what it is not, rather than what it is. It is not moving, not acting, not responding, being disconnected from the world, doing nothing, at least from the observerâs perspective. Which is one reason, I think, why people sleep-shame: it's a holdover from Calvinism, on which I have another article waiting in the green room. The 19th-century Scottish physician and philosopher Robert MacNish thought of sleep as âthe intermediate state between wakefulness and death: wakefulness being regarded as the active state of all animal and intellectual functions, and death as that of their total suspension.â You want my philosophical, entirely non-scientific, description of what sleep is for? No? Well, you're getting it anyway: sleep exists to prepare us for our inevitable death. The article swings close to this admittedly morbid proclamation, but never quite touches it. According to one theory, it is in the organismâs best interest to remain ignorant, and sleep exists to prevent us from acquiring unnecessary knowledge. I think it should be obvious by now that I can't agree with that "theory," not without a whole lot more evidence. Because there is no such thing as unnecessary knowledge. What is going on inside the sleeping brain during our typical night, and what can we learn from studying it to explain changes in our responsiveness to the world outside, or an occurrence of mixed states such as somnambulism, sleep paralysis, lucid dreaming or out-of-body experiences? The article lumps those "mixed states" under parasomnia, or sleep disorders. But how can we know these are disorders, if we don't fully understand the "order?" The belief in the superiority of wakefulness over sleep, combined with our inability to suppress our primitive, primordial need, breeds only resentment toward sleep. Sleep has become a problem we have to deal with. Having failed to find a quick cure, losing the war on sleep, there is a growing incentive among entrepreneurs and scientists alike to find a creative solution to that. On the other hand, sleep is becoming a commodity, a beauty product, a medicine, something that can be packaged and sold for our benefit. I kind of alluded to this up there: if we ever do figure out sleep, from a scientific perspective, it will become even more a victim of capitalism. Want a nightmare scenario for science fiction? Someone figures out how to get by on an hour's sleep, or to do away with it entirely. Imagine the productivity gains! There's a lot more at the link, of course (including a brief divergence into evo-psych guesswork, which lowers my estimation of the article). It is, as I said, enough to put one to sleep. Or maybe wake one up to a different perspective. |
| A language lesson (or not) from Mental Floss: Americaâs 10 Most Commonly Misunderstood Slang Terms A dirty bird in Kentucky is a good thing, actually. First, researchers used data from two sites, OnlyInYourState and EnjoyTravel.com, to create a list of state-specific terms. They then asked 1028 U.S. residents to guess what they thought each one meant. The 10 terms that were wrongly defined most frequently are listed below (along with some entertaining honorable mentions). I'd treat this as "for entertainment purposes only." Tavern // South Dakota In South Dakota, a tavern isnât alwaysâas most survey participants assumedâa bar. Sometimes, itâs a ground-beef sandwich similar to a sloppy joe. I was unaware of this name for that kind of sandwich. In my defense, I've never spent more time in South Dakota than I had to. Carry // Mississippi The common assumption was that carry in Mississippi meant âto have a gun on your person.â And it does mean thatâbut it can also mean âto drive (someone),â in the same way you might say, âI have to take my mom to the airport.â And then shoot her. Gnarly // California Gnarly is such a classic bit of â80s slang that you canât fault respondents for assuming itâs a synonym for cool. Funny thing about words: they mean what we want them to mean. Borrow pit // Montana A borrow pit is a pit formed when material is excavated (i.e. borrowed) from it and relocated somewhere else. Montana? We call it that in Virginia. There are a few more there at the site. Some are mildly amusing. Nothing earth-shakingly important; just a bit of fun. |
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