BREAKING NEWS: Science (2)

Hebrew Inscription Found at Lithuania’s Great Synagogue

Wed, 24 Jul 2019 03:20:29 +0000

VILNIUS, LITHUANIA—According to a Live Science report, continuing excavations at the site of the Great Synagogue of Vilna have unearthed floor tiles with geometric designs, some 200 coins dating from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries, a seating plaque, and a Hebrew inscription dating to the late eighteenth century. Archaeologist Jon Seligman of the Israel Antiquities Authority explained that the inscription, dedicated by two sons of a leading Lithuanian rabbinical family in memory of their parents, was part of a stone Torah reading table that stood on the synagogue’s two-story bimah, or prayer platform. Buttons found at the site are thought to have been dropped by soldiers in Napoleon’s army as they marched through Vilnius on their way to Moscow in 1812, Seligman added. To read more about the synagogue, go to "World Roundup: Lithuania."

Colonial-Era Meetinghouse Uncovered in New Hampshire

Wed, 24 Jul 2019 02:49:37 +0000

DOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE—The Associated Press reports that archaeologists led by Meghan Howey of the University of New Hampshire investigated the site of the Second Meetinghouse, which was built in 1654 for the congregation of the First Parish Church on New Hampshire’s Dover Point. The first meetinghouse, located further south on the tip of Dover Point, was abandoned when the colonists built a village to the north. The excavators uncovered the structure’s floor, which is thought to have been made with clay brought from nearby rivers. Two postholes detected in the soil may have been part of the structure’s foundation. Howey said that historic records indicate the structure was repaired in 1658. She thinks the second post may have been installed to shore up the first one at this time, and rocks at the site may have been moved there to stabilize the posts. The parish used the Second Meetinghouse until 1720, when all services were transferred to the third church building constructed in the new center of Dover. Church historian Diane Fiske speculates that bricks at the site may have been part of a replica meetinghouse constructed in the 1800s for a Dover Old Home Day festival. Children who visited the replica meetinghouse may have been given slate pencils like the ones discovered at the site last year, she added.

Edith Irby Jones, Pioneering Black Doctor in the South, Dies at 91

Wed, 24 Jul 2019 02:00:03 +0000

Watching her sister die of typhoid inspired her to become a doctor focused on treating poor people. She blazed a trail along the way.

Ethics Office Investigates Whether Interior Dept. Officials Violated Transparency Laws

Wed, 24 Jul 2019 01:52:02 +0000

The department’s internal ethics watchdog is examining whether top Trump appointees violated open-record laws by withholding or delaying the release of public files.

Someday, an Arm Implant May Prevent H.I.V. Infection for a Year

Wed, 24 Jul 2019 01:52:02 +0000

In preliminary tests, a matchstick-size rod containing a new drug offered promise as a shield against the virus. But a large clinical trial must still be done.

Engraving Identifies Roman Road Builders

Wed, 24 Jul 2019 01:45:15 +0000

VALKENBURG, THE NETHERLANDS—According to a Dutch News report, roadwork in the southeastern Netherlands, near what was once the northern border of the Roman Empire, has uncovered a pole carved with an inscription reading "COH II CR," which is short for “Cohors II Civium Romanorum.” A total of 470 wooden poles have been recovered along a 400-foot stretch of Roman road, but none of the other poles was inscribed. The inscription is thought to date to A.D. 125, and refers to a group of 500 Romans who specialized in building work. “We did not know whether the Roman road was built by soldiers, civilians, or perhaps slaves,” said Jasper de Bruin of the Dutch National Museum of Antiquities. “Now we can conclude that 2,000 years ago the second cohort of Roman civilians built the Roman road near Valkenburg, from which the present-day Rijnland Route takes its course.” De Bruin explained that the poles were created from trees grown for the purpose and driven into the ground with a pile driver. For more on archaeology of the Roman provinces, go to "The Road Almost Taken."

Neil Armstrong’s Death, and a Stormy, Secret $6 Million Settlement

Wed, 24 Jul 2019 01:36:32 +0000

The astronaut’s sons contended that incompetent medical care had cost him his life, and threatened to go public. His widow says she wanted no part of the payout.

LightSail 2 Unfurls Sails, Next Step Toward Space Travel on Solar Winds

Wed, 24 Jul 2019 00:09:02 +0000

The Planetary Society deployed LightSail 2, aiming to further demonstrate the potential of solar sailing for space travel.

House Democrats To Unveil Green New Deal Alternative By Year’s End

Wed, 24 Jul 2019 00:00:42 +0000

A House committee has set a goal to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 -- a target some say fails future generations.

Daniel Callahan, 88, Dies; Bioethics Pioneer Weighed ‘Human Finitude’

Wed, 24 Jul 2019 00:00:39 +0000

At the Hastings Center, which he co-founded, he explored ethical issues raised by medical advances and questioned the wisdom of prolonging life.

Victims of Havana embassy 'sonic attack' have distinctly different brains, MRIs show

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 23:51:04 +0000

Researchers found significant differences in various measures of the brains of people who were victims of the "sonic attack" at U.S. embassy in Havana.

New Technology Realizes Light-transmitting Metallic Surface (1)

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 23:47:17 +0000

Gikodo Co Ltd developed a technology to realize a surface that looks metal but transmits light.

Stopping child marriage with solar lanterns

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 23:19:33 +0000

Girls in Ethiopia are being given solar lamps to help stop child marriage and keep them in school.

When You Wear Sunscreen, You’re Taking Part in a Safety Study

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 21:44:35 +0000

But that doesn’t mean we should stop using them.

Your Data Were ‘Anonymized’? These Scientists Can Still Identify You

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 21:25:49 +0000

Computer scientists have developed an algorithm that can pick out almost any American in databases supposedly stripped of personal information.

Risk of mass extinctions as climate changes faster than animals adapt, study finds

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 21:24:53 +0000

Even common birds such as great tits, blue tits and guillemot cannot adapt fast enough

House Democrats Offer an Alternative to the Green New Deal

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 21:17:32 +0000

The influential group of lawmakers is calling for net-zero emissions in the United States by 2050. Supporters of the Green New Deal say that's not enough.

Christopher Kraft, NASA Mission Control’s Founding Father, Dies at 95

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 21:03:03 +0000

He directed the first piloted orbital flights, orchestrated spacewalks, oversaw the first lunar landing and led the space center in Houston.

National Science Teaching Association Censors Open Inquiry, Stonewalls When Questioned

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 20:26:02 +0000

Quality science education is all about inquiry, according to top journals like Nature and Science. Attorney Herman Bouma, head of the National Association for Objectivity in Science, certainly believes this — and most people would think that the world’s largest science education organization, the National Science Teaching Association, does too.

They don’t. What’s with that?

A year previous to the NSTA’s 2019 national conference this past April, Bouma submitted a proposal to give a talk. The NSTA accepted his proposal. As the event drew near, his talk was listed in both the conference program and on the conference app. That is, evidently, before someone took a closer look and became alarmed.

What was his talk about? I’ll give you one guess.

Darwin and Evolution

Bouma was to speak on “Darwin and Evolution: Using Historical Critiques and Responses to Address Student Misunderstanding.” Along with the title, he had provided to the NSTA a straightforward summary stating that his talk would address five of the critiques that Darwin received related to his theory of origins, and the responses that Darwin made to those critiques.

Bouma’s emphasis was on the civil dialogue that Darwin fostered in his writings, and the hope that educators today would strive for the same.

His presentation was scheduled for April 14 at 8:00 am. But the night before, something was wrong. Bouma could no longer find the talk on the conference app.

Something Was Wrong

The morning of his talk, Bouma arrived at the room at 7:15 am to start setting up. One family was present early. They were excited about his talk and had even stayed at their hotel an extra night just to attend his session. I spoke to a member of the family and this witness confirmed Bouma’s account. “I stayed purposefully and paid for another day at my hotel just to see him speak,” said the attendee. “So I was really disappointed and did voice my opinion. I spent an extra 100 dollars to stay and listen to this.”

Shortly after Bouma arrived, three conference officials approached him. The officials gave Bouma their names. Taking the lead for the group was Delores Howard, the NSTA’s Conferences Director. Also among the three was David Evans, Executive Director of the NSTA.

They let him know that it had “come to their attention” the night before that this talk was to be of a faith-based nature and that they had decided to cancel the talk. When he asked who brought this to their attention, they said they were “not at liberty to say.”

They told him to pack up. Meanwhile security guards joined the conference officials in turning people away at the door. The witness I spoke to confirmed this: “People were trying to come in and there were people outside the door — then a security guard said basically you need to leave. Herman said, ‘I don’t understand.’ He was told, ‘You have to leave this room.’ They literally were blocking the entrance to get into the room.” Imagine, the major U.S. science teachers group used security guards to stop a scheduled speaker from speaking and to hustle him out of the premises.

The family that was present was upset that they had stayed an extra night and could not hear the talk. So Bouma asked the officials if he could share a little about his talk with just that family. They emphatically refused and repeated that he needed to pack up and leave.

Why This Talk Was Different

The witness told me this was the first time her son had come along with her to an NSTA event. “He said, Wow, I can’t believe that people can be like this,” she said. “It’s not just like anyone can speak at the conference — you have to get approval from a committee. What I don’t understand is that there were other evolution talks — I don’t understand why his was so different from other speakers. I really felt bad for him. They wanted him out. This guy [Bouma] was older — was it really necessary to have all these people to get him out of the room? Was it that bad?” She continued: “I felt bad for my son to have to experience that.” The matter “should have been taken care of before [Bouma] took the plane out there” in the first place.

She told me that Bouma gave her a copy of his PowerPoint slides. “I still don’t get it,” she said. “There’s nothing there that’s a problem. He’s not saying, Oh, Martians evolved people. There was nothing out of the ordinary in the material he gave me.”

The witness said, “He wasn’t being disrespectful or belligerent to anyone there. That I can attest to. He just said, Why? If anything they should have been apologetic to him from the get-go.”

An Attempt to Follow Up

After the event, Bouma followed up by email with the NSTA’s David Evans. Bouma expressed his concern about what had happened and, since he lives close to the NSTA headquarters, requested a meeting. Evans responded that a meeting would not be productive, for Bouma or for himself. He said he agreed with the other officials in St. Louis that the NSTA did not support Bouma’s approach to studying the critiques of Darwin’s theory.

Seeking a comment, I contacted the NSTA myself. However both Delores Howard and David Evans refused to speak with me. Eric Hadley, who served as Program Coordinator for the conference, also refused to comment. I left a voicemail for Mike Sydlowski, the Conference Chairperson, but never heard back. This is what is commonly called stonewalling.

A small incident, you say? Just one man who had his presentation abruptly canceled? Yes, Bouma is just one man but he had run into something that should not exist in the halls of science. And don’t miss the irony. As Bouma wanted to convey to his listeners, Darwin himself sought out dialogue with critics. His modern followers seek to shut it down.

Instead of open inquiry, which should be the rule, dogmatism on evolution prevailed. It usually does. Herman Bouma’s story illustrates what, in countless classrooms and labs, the search for truth about biological origins is up against.

Photo credit: Ryan McGuire via Pixabay.

The post National Science Teaching Association Censors Open Inquiry, Stonewalls When Questioned appeared first on Evolution News.

Tourists' Photos May Help Wildlife Conservation Effort

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 20:14:06 +0000

Tourists' Photos May Help Wildlife Conservation Effort

Study suggests tourists' photos can yield better, cheaper data than traditional methods for studying wildlife.

Photograph-of-a-leopard-in-a-tree-CREDIT-Megan-Claase_cropped.jpg

Image credits:

Megan Claase

Creature

Tuesday, July 23, 2019 - 16:15

Nala Rogers, Staff Writer

(Inside Science) -- By sharing their pictures with scientists, tourists may be able to help monitor and conserve the wildlife they came to see, according to new research.

Kasim Rafiq, a wildlife researcher at Liverpool John Moores University in the U.K., got the idea to join forces with tourists after trying for months to get a glimpse of a one-eared leopard known as Pavarotti. While Rafiq was busy following Pavarotti's tracks and getting his car stuck in a warthog burrow, a nearby tour group had been watching the actual leopard, the tour guide told him during a chance meeting later that day.

"It was at that point where I really began to appreciate how much information they were collecting and how much potential there was to use that information for different research and conservation applications," said Rafiq.

The study, published this week in the journal Current Biology, focused on lions, cheetahs, African wild dogs, spotted hyenas and leopards in Botswana's Okavango Delta. With cooperation from a local tour company, the researchers gave GPS trackers to two volunteers from each tour group and collected the trackers along with the tourists' photos at the end of their stay. The photos were good enough to identify individual animals, and together with the GPS data, they allowed the researchers to estimate the number of animals in a given area.

The researchers compared the tourist photo method to three traditional monitoring methods: looking for tracks and feces, setting up camera traps, and calling in predators by playing sounds such as the calls of a dying wildebeest.

In almost all cases, the methods yielded similar estimates of animal population densities. But the tourist photo method was the most precise, allowing the researchers to narrow down their estimates to a smaller range of numbers. It was also cheap, since tourists agreed to carry GPS trackers and donate their photos free of charge.

The researchers were impressed by how eager the tourists were to help. Even tourists who were not issued GPS trackers often tried to donate their photos, said Rafiq. According to Rafiq, the findings suggest that tourists could be a valuable resource for research into other beloved species around the world.

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Nala Rogers

Nala Rogers is a staff writer and editor at Inside Science, where she covers the Earth and Creature beats. She has a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Utah and a graduate certificate in science communication from U.C. Santa Cruz. Before joining Inside Science, she wrote for diverse outlets including Science, Nature, the San Jose Mercury News, and Scientific American. In her spare time she likes to explore wilderness.

More than 80,000 aftershocks and counting: Ridgecrest earthquakes keep shaking

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 19:00:43 +0000

More than 80,000 quakes have been recorded in the Ridgecrest area since July 4 — the aftermath from two of the biggest temblors to hit California in nearly a decade.

Brain Study of Diplomats Reveals 'Medical Mystery'

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 18:43:00 +0000

The first brain-imaging study of US diplomats who reported suffering from mysterious ailments in Cuba appears to back up their story that something happened—but what that might be remains unclear. Researchers say the 40 diplomats studied have clear differences in their brains compared to a control group, they report...

Why Are Native Hawaiians Protesting Against a Telescope?

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 18:37:12 +0000

Demonstrators blocking construction of a major scientific project on Hawaii’s highest mountain have started to attract support across the country. Here’s what you need to know.

New NSF awards target breakthrough technologies to enhance food security

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 18:30:00 +0000

Imagine crops that required less water because a "wearable sensor" could "grow" along with a plant and provide more accurate and continuous readings of its hydration. Such a sensor would allow scientists to address fundamental questions about how water is used in a plant and could lead to the development of plants that are more water efficient. Or what about learning what makes some plants grow well even under environmental stress? Understanding how such high priority traits are inherited ...

More at https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=298897&WT.mc_id=USNSF_51&WT.mc_ev=click

This is an NSF News item.

Five Women Who Made the Moon Landing Possible

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 18:29:13 +0000

That “giant leap for mankind” happened thanks to plenty of women.

His $217 Auction Find Sells for $1.8M

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 17:23:01 +0000

Gary George was an intern at NASA's Johnson Space Center when he bought 1,150 reels of magnetic tape belonging to the agency at a government surplus auction in 1976. The $217.77 purchase certainly paid off. Included were three tapes representing the "earliest, sharpest, and most accurate surviving video...

Unique glowing click beetle found in southwest China

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 17:09:55 +0000

Scientists have discovered a new species of bioluminescent click beetle in the subtropical forests of southwest China.

Brain Scans Find Differences But No Injury In U.S. Diplomats Who Fell Ill In Cuba

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 16:36:00 +0000

Advanced MRI scans of 40 embassy workers who developed health problems in Havana found no evidence to support claims that they were attacked or suffered brain injuries.

(Image credit: Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters)

Were U.S. Diplomats Attacked in Cuba? Brain Study Deepens Mystery

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 15:46:41 +0000

“Something happened to the brain” of diplomats who reported odd ailments, brain-imaging study suggests. But the cause is still unclear.

Catching Sight Of A Rare Butterfly In A Surprising Refuge

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 15:43:45 +0000

Regal fritillary butterflies have largely disappeared from the East Coast, save for a military base in central Pennsylvania. A few days each summer, hundreds descend for guided tours to see them.

(Image credit: Doug Watson/WITF)

Scientists send light through 2D crystal layer in quantum computing leap

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 15:28:11 +0000

Physicists in Europe have managed to send light through a two-dimensional crystal layer, a breakthrough that provides a semiconducting platform for quantum computing.

Wavelength-encoded laser particles for massively multiplexed cell tagging

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 15:17:50 +0000

A new study, "Wavelength-encoded laser particles for massively multiplexed cell tagging," by scientists in the Wellman Center for Photomedicine has been published in Nature Photonics.

The Lowest of Low Seasons at the Edge of the World

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 15:05:02 +0000

The 52 Places Traveler was one of four tourists on the remote Falkland Islands, also known as Las Malvinas. But there were thousands of penguins.

Unconventional phenomena triggered by acoustic waves in 2-D materials

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 14:47:12 +0000

Researchers at the Center for Theoretical Physics of Complex Systems (PCS), within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS, South Korea), and colleagues have reported a novel phenomenon, called ...

Finding alternatives to diamonds for drilling

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 14:47:11 +0000

Thousands Of Americans Live In Vehicles. Without Parking, They Have Nowhere To Go.

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 14:43:12 +0000

These homeless people are blocked from social services when there are few parking spaces to leave their cars without risking tickets.

Climate change is increasing hurricanes, tropical storms and floods, scientists confirm

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 14:16:00 +0000

Report is latest to show global warming is already having devastating impact on lives

How the #Area51 meme turns aliens into comrades

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 14:01:00 +0000

On September 20, if all goes according to plan, 1.9 million people will storm Area 51 and liberate the extraterrestrials currently detained there by the U.S. government.

All will not go according to plan. Indeed, the plan as laid out on the Facebook event page "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," which was posted on June 27 and has spawned countless memes, is not much: "We will all meet up at the Area 51 Alien Center tourist attraction and coordinate our entry. If we naruto run [i.e., run with head and torso tilted forward and arms dangling behind, as popularized in anime] we can move faster than their bullets. Lets see them aliens."

Pointing out the holes in this plan is easy if not irrelevant. The real question is why so many young people want to storm Area 51. While it's clearly a joke, the meme has taken on such a life of its own that it's become a bit more than a joke. It has prompted an official response from the U.S. Air Force, and local businesses and law enforcement in Nevada are preparing for what might happen in September. So what about the idea has struck such a chord? And why do they want to free the aliens, when decades' worth of popular culture would have them fear the aliens?

For more than a century, the extraterrestrial has been an icon of reaction, symbolizing whatever it is that mainstream society is trying to protect itself from. As Lindsay Ellis discusses in an excellent video essay, the modern alien-invasion narrative evolved from the British invasion novel, a genre popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when the Union Jack was increasingly threatened by other empires and readers were drawn to semi-futuristic stories in which their homeland was invaded, sometimes successfully, by foreign powers. The War of the Worlds was squarely within this mold, with Mars instead of Germany as H. G. Wells' invader of choice. The novel's famous opening paragraph — in which the Martians observe humanity going about their business "with infinite complacency ... serene in their assurance of their empire" — reflected the common anxiety that British hegemony would be undone by British degeneracy, that internal weaknesses would expose the empire to external dangers.

Since then, aliens have been a useful way for popular culture to address larger anxieties within society. The 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers spoke to Americans' fear that communists were living among them, slowly converting their neighbors and infiltrating the land of the free. John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) — in which men are infected one-by-one by an unseen alien force, their bodies grotesquely penetrated and made to grow new orifices — is arguably a film about the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the fear of the closeted gay man. More recently, Cloverfield and Spielberg's War of the Worlds invoked the imagery of 9/11 and modern fears of terrorism and biological warfare.

In the #Area51 meme, however, the aliens are not seen as invaders to be feared but rather as prisoners to be liberated. Moreover, once the aliens are free, they turn out to have a lot in common with their human liberators. Many of the #Area51 social-media posts are focused on what happens after the raid is successful and, apparently, every human who participated in the raid brings an alien back home with them to crash for a couple of weeks. The alien shows you memes on their phone, smokes weed, asks if they "can have some raviolis," asks for your WiFi password and how your microwave works, lets you know you're out of parmesan cheese.

My alien I stole from area 51 waking me up at 3am to tell me there’s no more parmesan cheese pic.twitter.com/vVbT9mq0eF

— Lil Musk (@TheRealLilMusk) July 12, 2019

Alien-human relations can be yet more intimate in the #Area51 meme. The official merch site (set up by whoever created the Facebook event page) sells both crew necks and tank tops that boast, "I clap alien cheeks," the cheeks in question presumably being gluteal in nature. Pornhub has seen a spike in searches for "Area 51" and other alien-related videos. The takeover of Area 51 will apparently be followed by a celebratory orgy, with the human liberators "surrounded by thicc intergalactic yams" (yams being, again, a gluteal reference).

What is going on here? Why do participants and consumers of the #Area51 meme identify so strongly with the aliens, when aliens have long symbolized whatever we identify with the least? It would appear the fantasy of raiding Area 51 is an admission of how, well, alienated younger Americans feel. Most narratives with extraterrestrials posit them as a threat to a particular system or way of life, a system which the heroes are fighting to protect. But the newer generation — facing a future of economic inequality, environmental instability, and rising neo-fascism — doesn't feel like they're benefiting from that system. Rather than trying to preserve American hegemony in the face of an alien invasion, the #Area51 memesters want to overthrow American hegemony alongside their otherworldly allies.

Area 51 is, after all, a U.S. Air Force base. Storming Area 51 isn't just an act of intergalactic liberation; it's an unambiguous rebellion against the American government. There are certainly many young conservatives, especially military fetishists, who understand the proposed raid that way. In their rebuttal memes, they fantasize about the U.S. military mowing down thousands of deluded Internet weaklings. The kids storming Area 51, not the aliens detained there, are the invaders.

It is useful to compare Area 51's place in the meme to its place in the 1996 film Independence Day. The movie is a standard invasion narrative, with the aliens as the threat to civilization and the U.S. military as the protectors of civilization. When the president, played by a charismatic Bill Pullman, learns halfway through the film that Area 51 has alien specimens, he asks why he was never told the truth about the Air Force base. The answer is "plausible deniability," and that is good enough for the movie and its audience. Independence Day is not offering a critique of the U.S. intelligence or military state. The secrecy behind Area 51 is presented as a necessity, and badass fighter pilots, including the president himself, are the saviors of the day. Today, after Iraq and Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay and the proliferation of detention camps along America's southern border, Area 51 has a different resonance, reminding many of the cruelties of American militarism rather than its supposed triumphs.

Though it is likely unintentional, the #Area51 meme hearkens to a fringe leftist ideology, Posadism, that similarly imagines extraterrestrials as allies rather than enemies. J. Posadas, an Argentine Trotskyist who led a splinter sect of the anti-Stalinist Fourth International, theorized that extraterrestrials, since they had achieved intergalactic travel without killing each other first, had transcended capitalism, imperialism, and violence, and would be a necessary part of the revolutionary vanguard on Earth. In a 1968 pamphlet, Posadas wrote, "We must appeal to the beings on other planets, when they come here, to intervene and collaborate with Earth's inhabitants in suppressing poverty." Whereas capitalists were understandably afraid of aliens, socialists should welcome them with open arms, for "socialism … has no fear in being compared with or integrated into higher forms of progress."

Though Posadism has seen a resurgence of interest (at least ironically) from leftists, the #Area51 meme is more a kind of folk-Posadism — a growing openness to the possibility, as the globe warms and democracy falters, that extraterrestrials could run things better than whoever is running it now. The aliens certainly couldn't do any worse.

It was perhaps inevitable that the #Area51 meme would intersect with the extremely-online song of the summer, Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road." There were jokes that the liberated aliens would finally get to hear the song and then promptly, like teenagers doing the yeehaw challenge on TikTok, don cowboy gear. But these two meme universes fully collided last week when Lil Nas X released an animated music video titled "Old Town Raid."

The video must be seen to be even feebly explained. Lil Nas X and the featured artists on this particular remix (Billy Ray Cyrus, Young Thug, and "Wal-Mart yodeler" Mason Ramsey) storm Area 51 on horseback, with Keanu Reeves and many thousands more doing the Naruto run behind them. The Area 51 guards drop their guns in fear and urinate themselves; green goo pours from their orifices, presumably thanks to alien technology. Our heroes are then given gifts by the thankful aliens (who are wearing hoodies and smoking joints): a hovering motorcycle, a robotic horse, a glowing green chain for Young Thug.

It makes a strange sort of sense that Lil Nas X would lead the raid on Area 51. Just as the #Area51 meme scrambles the traditional narrative of the extraterrestrial, "Old Town Road" remixes and subverts the archetype of the American cowboy, appropriating a symbol that has long been tied to American territorial expansion and white patriarchal power. One could not imagine John Wayne storming Area 51; if anything he'd be standing right alongside the guards. But Lil Nas X is a different kind of cowboy, one who is more interested in freeing his comrades than preserving U.S. legitimacy.

The whole thing is unabashedly silly, and there are more than a few scolds who wish everyone joking about storming Area 51 would realize that they could channel that same energy into real revolutionary change.

Instead of storming Area 51 let’s raid all the immigration camps and set all the kids free

— not you (@sleazymcneazy) July 9, 2019

But that may be asking too much of a meme. It should be enough to hear the meme for what it is: an expression of distrust for, and estrangement from, those who claim to be protecting us. At the heart of the #Area51 meme is the nagging feeling that we no longer belong — that we were "born," as one of the #StormArea51 t-shirts says, "on the wrong planet."

Towards a light driven molecular assembler

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 13:17:20 +0000

Chemists usually synthesize molecules using stochastic bond-forming collisions of the reactant molecules in solution. Nature follows a different strategy in biochemical synthesis. The majority ...

Physicists have let light through the plane of the world's thinnest semiconductor crystal

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 13:17:16 +0000

Climate change increasing hurricanes, storms, floods, North Carolina records show

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 13:11:54 +0000

Storms are getting bigger and floods are getting worse as a result of climate change, according to a historic 120-year-old data set.

What’s in Your Bag? 2019 Edition

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 13:00:25 +0000

From Amann, Jordan, to marine environments off of the Domincan Republic, anthropologists open their field bags to reveal notebooks, recording equipment, reminders of home, and even a speargun. What’s in your bag?

William M. Cotter

I’ve been doing fieldwork in Amman throughout 2018 and 2019. My bag is a Timbuk2 Spire backpack that has a cool saguaro cactus pin on it that my partner gave me. That rust-colored bandana matches the bandanas that my partner and puppy have, and it’s a wonderful reminder of home.

My regular research equipment consists of a Zoom H5 recorder, Sennheiser wireless unit and microphones, headphones, and a Canon Rebel T7i with 18-55mm, 50mm, and 55-250mm lenses. I also usually have my laptop with me so I can back up notes and data. That means I carry multiple chargers and adapters to keep everything running. I carry my iPad primarily because I play an embarrassing amount of MLB 9Innings19 when I’m waiting for things to happen. Before leaving for Amman, my partner gave me a moleskine and a flat pen that serve as my go-to for notes and questions to keep me on track during interviews. I’ve started carrying business cards with me so people can get ahold of me if they have questions about my work. It’s also hot here, so I carry a hat and hydroflask. I try to carry sunscreen regularly too. Sunburn stinks.

William M. Cotter is a PhD candidate at the University of Arizona. His dissertation research focuses on language use and economic change in Amman, Jordan.

Kyrstin Mallon Andrews

The hardest part of packing for fieldwork is finding a bag that fits my speargun. One of the spearfishermen I work with gave me an oblong drawstring for the four-foot-long speargun. He also made me the speargun and taught me to fish with it. I came to the field with green Technisub fins that I found for $3 in a California thrift store, and a classic oval mask from another thrift store. Divers prefer these masks for their wide peripheral vision underwater, something that’s useful when you’re looking for skittish snapper in fire coral. My neoprene jacket keeps me warm on six-hour swims, and the garden glove is crucial for handling spiny lobster. Lycra pants are a trick I learned from fishermen for sun protection, but these galaxy ones also seem to attract barracuda, who have similar star-spangled bodies. A stray piece of metal wire with a bottle cap attached to the end works to string speared fish. I have two Shinola journals, one for longer entries and the other for on-the-go notes, alongside a third journal for creative writing. Finally, the Gopro is how I collect data at sea, since trying to take notes on a lurching skiff is a recipe for seasickness.

Kyrstin Mallon Andrews is a cultural anthropologist of oceans, health, and borders. Her research explores changing marine environments of the Dominican Republic.

Cite as: Cotter, William M., and Kyrstin Mallon Andrews. 2019. “What’s in Your Bag? 2019 Edition.” Anthropology News website, July 23, 2019. DOI: 10.1111/1232

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