Seth's Blog

According to my theory of human evolution, art evolved as a way to advance material science. Because we enjoy art we paid for it, which helped artists develop better control of materials.

According to Dorothy Hosler, author of The Sounds and Colors of Power: The Sacred Metallurgical Technology of Ancient West Mexico,

Metallic sounding instruments, especially bells, were used in rituals that offered protection in war, that celebrated creation, fertility, and regeneration, and that figured in concepts of the sacred—rituals, in short, that created a universe through song, through the sound of bells, and through reflective golden and silvery colors.

In Mexico, she is saying, advanced metallurgy was first used to make bells. So here is an example. Rituals, too, I argue, evolved because they provided a desire for “nice” stuff — the fine printing of Christmas cards, the fine clothes of priests — which helped state-of-the-art artisans improve.

Here was a way to support science/technology that worked. Whereas the current system gives us delusional ideas about genes.

Vladimir Nabokov’s final, unfinished novel, The Original of Laura, will be published November 3. Fortunately no one was hired to finish it.

In a Berkeley bookstore, many years ago, Brian Boyd said he’d read Laura at the request of Nabokov’s wife and son. What do you think? they asked. It’s not going to make a difference, Boyd told them.

The fate of Laura.

From a new study:

We prospectively examined sitting time and mortality in a representative sample of 17,013 Canadians 18-90 yr of age. [They were divided into five groups based on] daily amount of sitting time (almost none of the time, one fourth of the time, half of the time, three fourths of the time, almost all of the time . . . Participants were followed prospectively for an average of 12.0 yr for the ascertainment of mortality status. RESULTS:: There were 1832 deaths (759 of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and 547 of cancer) during 204,732 person-yr of follow-up. After adjustment for potential confounders, there was a progressively higher risk of mortality across higher levels of sitting time from all causes (hazard ratios (HR): 1.00, 1.00, 1.11, 1.36, 1.54; P for trend <0.0001) and CVD (HR:1.00, 1.01, 1.22, 1.47, 1.54; P for trend <0.0001) but not cancer.

I am pleased to see no problem with sitting one-fourth of the time. The CVD/cancer difference suggests the two diseases have different causes — which is consistent with cancer being due to environmental chemicals (e.g., cigarette smoke) and age (cancer risk goes up as the fourth power of age).

Related research from the same lab. My self-experimentation about standing. My one-legged standing (which I still do and am still studying).

Thanks to Dave Lull.

Justin Owings writes:

[My cat] doesn’t drink milk (though he’s had the option), but goes nuts for cheese, has licked a bowl of kefir clean, and loves yogurt. . . . He wasn’t interested in Kombucha on a saucer though.

The wisdom of the five-year-old picky eater.

Judith Krug (1940-2009) was a librarian who defended libraries with objectionable books:

The importance of her work was made clear [to her] when she read “And Tango Makes Three” to her granddaughter’s class.

The book is often the target of censors because it’s about two male penguins who “adopt” an unclaimed egg.

When she was finished, a girl she later learned was being raised by two women stood and clapped her hands.

Via Radosh.net.