At the University of Basel, in Switzerland, the papyrus collection contained a mystery. Most of the papyri had come to the university around 1900, for the classical studies curriculum, but two had been in the university’s possession for much longer, going back to the 16th century.
One of those papyri was unlike any other in the collection, and for generations, the university said, it puzzled researchers. As best they could tell, it had mirror writing on both sides, with the letters going the opposite direction that they should.
“It was considered an odd piece,” says Sabine Huebner, a professor of ancient history at the university. But now the university’s researchers have finally understood what was strange about it.
Turns out, it was many sheets of papyrus glued together.
This was not obvious, for 400 years or so. Recently, though, the Basel Digital Humanities Lab examined the papyrus under infrared and ultraviolet light. UV light isn’t usually used to help decipher papyri, but in this case it revealed that the mystery papyrus had “several layers bonded together with a sort of medieval glue,” Huebner explains.
Once they understood what was wrong, the researchers had a specialist come in to tease apart the layers. When, after all these years, they were able to read the document, they found that it was an unknown medical document—a piece of writing that will add to scholars’ understanding of the past.
Based on its similarities to papyri held in Ravenna, Italy, the papyrus text looks to be the work of Galen, the most well-known physician of the Roman era, or a commentary on his work. The text was probably used for bookbinding back in the Middle Ages, when either this text was more available than it is now or no one thought it was important to save.
When purple martins moved into the William B. Umstead bridge, the laws changed.
Earlier this week, the weather radars that focus on the William B. Umstead bridge in North Carolina's Outer Banks began to look a little strange. Each day at dawn, a huge cloud of activity swelled out of the bridge and then dissipated into the surrounding body of water, the Croatan Sound. At dusk, another cloud would appear, swooping in from the sound and back towards the bridge again.
The bridge is not creating its own small thunderstorms. Instead, the Doppler radar is picking up on a huge group of temporary residents: about 100,000 purple martins. In the summertime, large gatherings of martins can be found all over the South, from an abandoned mall in Texas to a parking garage in Oklahoma. But this flock's particular choice of habitat has changed how their human neighbors use—and think about—local infrastructure.
Purple martins are North America's largest swallows. The males are known for their chipper calls and their glossy plum-colored feathers. They split their time between North and South America, spending winters near the equator and summers in the southern United States.
Purple martins who travel down the west coast of the U.S. tend to roost on their own, generally in abandoned woodpecker holes. But east coast ones depend almost entirely on human help. "The summer residence of this agreeable bird is universally among the habitations of man," the ornithologist Alexander Wilson wrote in 1808, adding that he had seen them nesting in pigeon-houses and in cornices, as well as in hollowed-out gourds hung on trees by members of the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes.
Purple martins who fly through North Carolina these days have plenty of roosting options: Many fans still put out houses and gourds for them, and stand guard against competing species, like starlings and house sparrows. But about 40 years ago, a whole lot of birds decided to switch to co-op housing. They started roosting under the William B. Umstead Bridge, a 14,000-foot span that crosses the sound, and links the town of Manns Harbor to Roanoke Island.
"We're not really sure why," says Gail Hutchinson, a board member of the Coastal Carolina Purple Martin Society (CCPMS). "But they really like this bridge." Martin families now come from as far as 150 miles away to roost here for the summer, and to fatten up in preparation for their fall migration to Brazil. "There are girders that are just wide enough for a bird to sit, and they do that in long rows," says Hutchinson. They come in slowly, in late June and early July. About six weeks later, they depart, leaving the bridge empty again.
In this case, there's just one problem: Martins and people have similar commuting schedules. Every summer morning, the birds head out from under the bridge all at once: "Someone says 'Hey, let's get going,' and they jump out and fly all over the place," says Hutchinson. They spend the day feeding. At sunset, they all head back, full of bugs.
Because this bird rush hour coincides with human rush hour, the birds tend to lose out. In 2007, Hutchinson was driving to her parents' house in Mann's Harbor when she experienced this firsthand. "I totally forgot about the birds—I just wasn't thinking about them," she says. "I rounded the corner and plowed right into them. It killed my heart." She called a friend at the Outer Banks Sentinel, who wrote an article about the problem.
This spurred the CCPMS to make this shared infrastructure a little more bird-friendly. With the help of the North Carolina Department of Transportation, they introduced a special summer speed limit. Drivers crossing onto the bridge, used to going 55 miles per hour, are now greeted by an explanatory sign: "LOW FLYING BIRDS. SPEED LIMIT 20 WHEN FLASHING. DUSK AND DAWN." They try to start it up a few weeks before the birds come, to get people used to the idea. Police are occasionally stationed to enforce it.
Since this speed limit was introduced, the avian death toll "has gone down considerably," says Hutchinson. "Maybe three to seven birds a night, instead of 50 or 60." The birds have also embraced this cooperative spirit, learning to fly a bit higher and dodge cars. The CCPMS has built more infrastructure, too: In 2009, it added an observation pier, where people gather to watch the birds fly in and out. This year, the martins arrived a bit earlier than usual, in mid-June, but "everything seems to be going smoothly," says Hutchinson. "We're thankful for that."
Every once in a while, it's not so bad to make ourselves slow down. "Almost every county tavern has a martin box on the upper part of its sign-board," John James Audubon observed in 1831. "The handsomer the box, the better does the inn generally prove to be." The William B. Umstead Bridge may not be particularly handsome on its own, but with the birds swirling around it, it certainly is.
In the early 20th century, Julius Neubronner turned his birds into photographers.
It’s hard to imagine now, in the age of drone photography, how it would have felt to have the very first glimpse of the world from a bird’s-eye view. In the 19th century, early photographers experimented with aerial images using balloons and kites, devices that were made and controlled by humans. But a more organic perspective emerged when a German apothecary strapped a small camera to a pigeon, to photograph the world in flight.
His name was Julius Neubronner, and he had a family history of using pigeons in unconventional ways. His father, also an apothecary, received prescriptions and sent out urgent medications by pigeon. Neubronner also relied on pigeons to replenish his stocks of medications. But when a bird went missing for a month, Neubronner was curious to know where it had been. While other bird-owners might consider this thought a mere flight of fancy, an unanswerable question, Neubronner took a different view: He designed a camera, one that shot automatically, for his pigeons to wear.
Despite their often negative public image, pigeons have a long history of being incredibly useful to humans. In Ancient Rome, pigeons delivered news of chariot victories. There are multiple accounts of their use in wartime throughout history, including in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, when besieged Parisians sent messages out of the city via pigeon. They even helped build a business empire. But using pigeons to carry cameras was new, and so Neubronner began to experiment.
According to a December 1908 article in The New York Tribune, Neubronner figured out the best shutter speed by photographing from express trains. He reportedly created several different devices, and in 1907, he submitted his "Method of and Means for Taking Photographs of Landscapes From Above" to the Imperial Patent Office. In this design, the camera, which had two inclined lenses and an automatic shutter, was fixed to an aluminum frame which was then strapped to the pigeon with a leather harness. The patent office approved the device in 1908, but only after Neubronner supplied photographic evidence that it could actually function.
After his patent was approved, Neubronner displayed his photographs at the 1909 Dresden International Exhibition of Photography. Newspapers picked up on the story. “Pigeons Now Used as Photographers,” headlined The Columbian newspaper, on January 7, 1909. In Australia, the Lismore Star wrote “Pigeons to Take Photographs While Flying.”
The Prussian Ministry of War also took an interest. Camera-wielding pigeons had enormous reconnaissance potential. In a piece headlined “Pigeons Carry Small Camera for Scientist,” the Los Angeles Herald reported starkly “The carrier pigeon flies at the height of 150 to 300 feet, safe from small shot and very difficult to hit with bullets.” According to a 1909 magazine article, the government requested pigeon photographs of the Tegel Water Works to test Neubronner's invention, which he arranged, training his pigeons to return to a mobile dovecote complete with darkroom. But the military potential was relatively short-lived: During World War I, new specially-designed aerial cameras spied on the enemy from planes, outpacing the potential pigeons might have had.
The freewheeling charm of Neubronner’s pigeon photographs is on full display in a recent book published by Rorhof. Atlas Obscura has a selection of images from The Pigeon Photographer.
Summer's in full swing. It's hot, it's sweaty. We're indulging in too many cold showers and loads of laundry. But there's one saving grace, and that's a trip to the local ice cream shop. Not to sound too much like a Cathy comic, but ACK!, ice cream can really be a life saver on days like these.
In honor of National Ice Cream Day on July 15, we asked Atlas Obscura readers to tell us about their favorite independent ice cream shops, and the results were, well, cool. Across hundreds of responses you told us about the local ice cream shops that are important parts of your communities. Some offer fascinating new flavors, while others are just great places to get a few solid scoops. These favorite ice cream outlets embody not just the cold confections within, but the indulgent ritual of going out for a cone.
Check out some of the best submissions we received below, but fair warning, reading them will likely make you want to go get some ice cream. In fact, now it's a challenge. Just try and read about these local ice cream shops without craving a cone of your own. God, I want some ice cream...
“A local woman-owned and woman-run ice cream parlor, dairy farm, and pizza parlor! It's located in an old house in Strawberry Plains (an area of Knoxville) and also has an ice cream truck that shows up at the local farmers' market and events. All of the employees wear red gingham dresses and a cute retro style.” Recommended: “Their menu rotates, but Lavender Honey is a perpetual favorite. They also do dip cones in a variety of flavors!” — Christina Sayer
“It’s located next to the downtown railroad tracks in an old train caboose. Apart from the ice cream being generously served and amazing and taste, the caboose looks like it has a giant scoop of ice cream on top.” Recommended: “Birthday Cake.” — Aida
“Rhea's is a tiny ice cream place in a quirky little college town that has kept up a long-standing tradition of making monthly customer-suggested ice creams the student population keeps interesting and seasonal.” Recommended: “Circus Animal Cookie.” — Benjamin Mikiten
“High quality ingredients, locally sourced if possible, and creative!” Recommended: “Regina di Cuori (Queen of Hearts) is pretty amazing, mascarpone and sour cherries in syrup! I also love Brucaliffo (Caterpillar), a basil and lemon sorbet.” — Irene Boschi
"Niederfrank's has been selling handmade ice cream since 1948. They make their own waffle cones and have a TON of flavors, both traditional and not. It is delightfully old fashioned and we HOPE it stays that way! We joke that it's the LAW that you MUST eat ice cream on national holidays, and much to our delight, they are always open (lots of places seem to close on Mondays). We love them!" Recommended: "I always get chocolate chip but rotate the other scoop flavor (yummy sweet cream and peanut butter, for example). My husband gets rum raisin and a coffee flavor of some sort." — Sherri Schottlaender
“An ice cream shop located in an unassuming little alley in downtown McCall. You walk down the narrow passageway, and you find a small courtyard with seating and a booth where ice cream is sold. They also serve ridiculously large scoops. Even the kids scoops are larger than normal.” Recommended: “Their Birthday Cake flavor is incredible because it is filled with vanilla cake chunks, chocolate cake chunks, frosting, and caramel scattered through it.” — Clark Carver
“It offers a wide variety of ice cream flavors, but the real attraction is its own proprietary frozen custard. It comes in a dazzling array of flavors.” Recommended: “My husband’s favorite is the Chocolate Orange, for me it’s the creamy simplicity of their Vanilla I like best.” — Katherine
“Since 1953, still owned and operated by the Mitchell family. An eight minute walk from my flat!! 40 flavors including a few tropical inspired: Mango, Macapuno, Avocado, Buko, Ube, Langka, and more. The staff are polite and efficient. The line is usually out the door, and you never have to wait long!” Recommended: “Caramel Praline.” — Phillip Bowman
“It's beloved in San Francisco for their dedication to quality and freshness. They make their ice cream in small batches, right where they sell it in the Mission District. They make their own toppings, they source their dairy and fruits from local creameries and farms. Bi-Rite is known for both their familiar flavors (Salted Caramel, Vanilla, Cookies and Cream) and their unique flavors (Balsamic Strawberry, Ricanelas, Brown Sugar Ginger Caramel Swirl). It’s mentioned in their cookbook, Sweet Creams and Sugar Cones, that ice cream shouldn't simply be good. It should be unique to its flavor, in such a way that when you take a bite (or a lick) you'll know exactly what flavor it's meant to be. And Bi-Rite has definitely succeeded with that.” Recommended: “Ricanelas ice cream!” — Lia
"The shop first opened in 1951, and it hasn’t changed much since then. It still has the old neon lighting. It also has the round concrete tables with newly added umbrellas. The owners are longtime residents of the area and one owner worked there when she was 15. Her mother and two aunts also worked there at one time." Recommended: "They customize what I ask for, a cherry chocolate chip 'flurry' made with chocolate ice cream! Delicious!" — Yvonne Miles
“They make every ice cream they offer, and usually there are at least six (often more) vegan offerings. They offer flavors that are cutting edge as well as traditional offerings. Every single flavor I've tried is exceptional.” Recommended: “Watermelon Mint Sorbet.” — Richard
“Old fashioned ice cream shop, soda fountain, cafe with counter seating and booths next to huge plate glass windows that face onto the town's old City Hall and park. It's been in the same location since the 1920s and is mostly untouched. Pink banquettes and pressed tin ceiling. All the ice cream is made on premises. Insanely thick milkshakes, so thick you can't use a straw until they have melted a bit. All of the flavors are delicious and loaded with milk fat. It used to be a full service dairy that sold its own milk and other dairy products as well.” Recommended: “Seasonal fresh peach and fresh strawberry. Super-chocolatey milk chocolate that almost hurts your mouth it's so chocolate.” — Jeff
“Fryst is a hole in the wall located by the canal overlooking the all-white Karlberg Castle. Rehné and Benjamin who run it, take extreme care to balance the taste of their ice cream and sorbets. They only use the best seasonal ingredients (some of which, because of limited space, are stored right next to the customers). Fryst has a few flavours that persist throughout the year, but most of the flavours are switched out depending on what quality ingredients are available and what inspiration is in the air at the time. Fryst also makes holliday-relevant flavors like Gingerbread on Christmas, Champagne/Strawberry on New Years, and Semla on Fat Tuesday. All the ice cream at Fryst is draped in generous amounts of the caramel or nuts that make up the taste of that particular ice cream. Nom nom nom! The best time to visit Fryst is when it’s raining or in the off season. Then the line is smaller and Rehné and Benjamin have had more time to focus on balancing the ice cream and experiment with flavors.” Recommended: “Salmiak, Lavender/Honey, Autumn Apple Pie with Browned Butter.” — Björn
“They make your ice cream to order to order with liquid nitrogen and blow torches.” Recommended: “All of them. Simple Strawberry is my favorite, but their vanilla shake rendition of a White Russian is also spectacular.” — Max Raden
“It’s been featured on the Today Show, and for good reason. It’s all homemade soft serve ice cream, in RIDICULOUSLY delicious flavors, and a large is literally the length of a grown adult human's forearm! A small is a large at any other ice cream establishment!” Recommended: “Blackberry & Coconut TWISTED.” — Katie G.
“It offers incredible flavors inspired by various Asian cuisines as well as whimsical flavors from your childhood. Examples include Durian and Fruit Loops.” Recommended: “Hong Kong Milk Tea” — Liliane Pang
"It was started in the kitchen of a neighbor, and slowly she grew it into a business with two locations. In the store you can watch the ice cream being spun, and you can taste as many of their yummy flavors as you'd like. They also offer waffle bowls, and the most delicious butter cake. Their latest creation is called Cabernet Brownie, it has red wine brownie chucks in vanilla ice cream." Recommended: "Cashew Fennel Chip." — Carol Clark
“[They] sell Wisconsin custard to neighbors at reasonable prices in a region where ice cream is marketed mostly towards tourists (and at tourist prices). The custard is rich and creamy, very different from soft serve. Each day, they have a different flavor in addition to the usual Vanilla and Chocolate. President Obama made a trip there in 2009 and there is still a cute picture of him and his then eight-year-old daughter, Sasha. We experienced a scare when the owner Liz Davis shut down briefly last year, her hard work was evident throughout the shop but also personally exhausting. But fortunately, she was able to sell the shop and relax!” Recommended: “Mozambique, with cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.” — Zack DesJardins
“I think Kem Koba represents what Montreal is about: multiculturalism. It is owned by Ngoc Phan and Vincent Beck. Beck is from France and Phan is from Vietnam. They have combined their cultures to create atypical flavors like Hibiscus, Vietnamese Coffee, Pandanus, Almond and Sour Cherry, Corossol, Lychee, Mango Lassi, and all kinds of Southeast Asian fruits. Although you can have those individually, they prefer to combine flavors, often a traditional and an exotic flavor, in their soft serve. That represents our city. We come together from all over the world in a happy harmony (at least most of the time). And the line is always, always long.” Recommended: “Pandanu Leaf” — Marie Lamensch
“The name is hilarious, but the real story of it is that it took about two years to open. During that time it sat closed with a beautiful, tantalizing sign and slowly added more and more fascinating interior elements (wavy pink plastic walls, a ceiling painted blue with clouds, giant plastic ice cream cones) week by week... but stayed closed! They painted fantastical pictures on the windows of an ENORMOUS donut with scoops of ice cream inside it, leaving us to wonder, will they serve that? Over time it just turned into an awful tease. I wanted an ice cream shop in my neighborhood so bad, especially one so overwhelmingly pink and magical. But whenever I asked the guys at the corner store next door (same family that was going to open the shop) when it would open, I got responses ranging from ‘probably next week!’ to (dismissive hand wave) ‘eh…’ I gave up hope over time. Then one day, out of frickin' nowhere, it opened.” Recommended: “Cookie Monster. It's bright blue and includes elements of cookies and cream, cookie dough, brownie, etc. It is so wonderful and one time they were out and while I was struggling to pick another flavor, a small child ran into the shop with a look of joy which absolutely crumbled when he heard there was no Cookie Monster.” — Amy Martin
“It's called Ome Calli, which means "second home" in Nahuatl, an indigenous language in Mexico (spoken during the Aztec empire). It was founded and currently owned by Mexican immigrants, and it serves people in the Latino community and beyond in the Portland metro. It's amazing because of the way its ice cream and frozen treats are associated with a particular culture but the shop is also very open to everyone in the community. I worked there part time in the summer and I love it a lot, especially getting to chat with customers in English and Spanish.” Recommended: “I would say either Corn or (alcohol-free) Tequila with Sunflower Seeds!” — Amanda Flores
"They make their own ice creams and sorbets from local ingredients and they are wonderful. They also make their own waffle cones, nice fresh and crunchy. They are constantly trying new flavors or bringing back seasonal flavors. Yesterday as we drove by their sign proclaimed Lavender ice cream." Recommended: "I’m a purist, Chocolate all the way. My favorite is their Deep Dark Secret in a waffle cone." — Kee Nethery
“[It’s] special because they offer terrific basic flavors, unusual specialty flavors, and are very responsive to customer requests for flavors you can't find anywhere else in the central Kansas region. They also offer non-dairy options.” Recommended: “Maple Bacon, and Salted Caramel Banana.” — David Hawksworth
“It has been run by a local family for more than 70 years. What makes it special is the transformations it has gone through the years from a dance hall, to a big toy store, and now to a mixed retail shop and cafe, but something has never changed. They have always sold their own family recipe of ice cream throughout all those years and store transformations. So that just tells you that the ice cream is a winner with the public.” Recommended: “Strawberry Cheesecake.” — Nicholas Davis
“You can smell their homemade waffle cones from about a block away. My favorite touch is that they put an M&M in the bottom to stop ice cream drips. I love that you get a bit of chocolate with that last bite of the waffle cone!” Recommended: “The crowd favorite is Birthday Cake, but I like their Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough!” — Candy
“The nicest part about going to The Silver Dipper is the man that works there! He is as passionate about ice cream as anyone that ever existed. You could even call him an ice cream nerd. The fat (read: deliciousness) content in their ice cream is so high they don't want to tell you!” Recommended: “The midwestern classic: Blue Moon.” — Colleen Neiner
“It's part of the University of Wisconsin Center for Dairy Research. The ice cream produced there is obscenely rich in butter fat with a mouth feel that has to be experienced to be believed. The portions are large with innovative flavors.” Recommended: “Two stand outs are Orange Custard Chocolate Chip and Union Utopia, vanilla ice cream with swirls of peanut butter, caramel, and fudge.” — Henry Verden
“On the front window is a giant fish painting. There isn't a huge variety of ice cream, but it's all good. Everyone goes to the bait shop in the summer. It's the go to place since we don't have a proper Chocolate Shop (that's a Midwestern ice cream company, it's the best ice cream ever). The bait shop is something everyone in Monona knows. It also sits right on the lake so you can visit it by boat.” Recommended: “Blue Moon (It's everywhere in the Midwest, but it's one of my favorite flavors).” — Skye
"We have been known to skip dinner entirely and just go to Chiller Bee! It’s actually frozen yogurt, but so delicious, dozens of flavors and hundreds of toppings." Recommended: "I love the Tahitian Vanilla, but the Pomegranate Raspberry is delicious too!" — Steven Meeker
“The Charmery is everything you want in an ice cream shop. Interesting flavors, great staff. My favorite was when they paired with local restaurants to create ice cream with ingredients like saffron, Marcona almonds, and other spices that are used in international cuisines.” Recommended: “Old Bay Caramel.” — Carol
“They make their own ice cream using local ingredients including spruce tips and salt from Prince William Sound.” Recommended: “Sitka Swirl.” — Timothy Baranoski
“Cool little interior in downtown Phoenixville, Pennsylvania with a great owner. First time I went in and got ice cream, I didn't see the notice that it was cash only. I got to the register with no cash on me. I started to stumble through an apology, indicating that I'd go to the nearest ATM, when he said to me, "Don't worry about it. You can get me back next time." I thought that was a seriously cool attitude to have. In the time since, I've seen him do the same thing several other times for others.” Recommended: “I'm partial to 'The WHYY Experience,' a flavor dedicated to a local radio station, consisting of vanilla ice cream with butterscotch and chocolate-covered pretzels, in a pretzel cone.” — Thomas Foster
“American diner style, with black and white floors, red vinyl booths, jukebox. Ice cream made on site, with new, bold flavors occasionally.” Recommended: “Turkish Delight.” — Barbara Young
“[They have] the most delicious goat milk ice cream in a variety of flavors! They are also a working goat farm, so at certain times of the day you can go outside to pet the baby goats or watch the milking process from behind a big glass window in the milking parlor.” Recommended: “I'm a Vanilla girl, but they also have an incredible Sea Salt Caramel.” — Shannon Schuren
“I love Vanderwende's Farm Creamery! Vanderwende’s offers about 25-30 different flavors of ice cream. My favorites are Lemon Chiffon and Salty Caramel. They also have milkshakes, sundaes, and even a dog sundae that comes with two dog treats in it. Bonus: you can eat your ice cream outside, right next to a pasture full of dairy cows. That is, if the wind is blowing in a favorable direction. Otherwise, you might want to stay inside.” Recommended: “Salty Caramel.” — Julie Peters
"My favorite ice cream parlor is MN Nice Cream. They sell soft serve with all kinds of amazing toppings to choose from. It started out as a food truck and finally found a little spot to call its own just this year." Recommended: "They have the standard chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry, but offer special flavors now and then." — Monique Hernandez
“[This shop] has been around since 1926 in a pastel pink, hacienda-style building. The origin story of founder Joseph Sapp growing up as an orphan on a work farm and saving up money to buy ice cream, is pretty special too.” Recommended: “The titular treat of ORC is a cone with five flavors stacked on top of each other. Chocolate, Strawberry, Palmer House (New York vanilla with cherries and walnuts), Pistachio, and topped with Orange Sherbet.” — Joe Lalonde
“The Norwood Delite creamy whip always has blue soft serve, which is a weird Cincinnati obsession.” Recommended: “Blue and Vanilla Swirl with rainbow sprinkles.” — Julia Hider
“Mariposa Ice Cream is hands down my favorite ice cream parlor. The owners (Anna and Dick) make everything from scratch, which means summer time brings wonderful fresh flavors, like Peach. The best part about Mariposa is that it embodies what an ice cream shop should be to a community. The owners know everybody, and everybody loves them. Testament to this is that the walls are plastered with thank you notes from school kids and neighbors. When I was in elementary school, Anna and Dick got to know all of us kids by offering $1 cone happy hour. Twenty years later, Anna remembers my face and name any time I stop by, despite the fact that it might be a year or two in between visits home. Ice cream should be delicious, but it should also be provided by people who love you, and that's what makes Mariposa the best!” Recommended: “Banana Walnut.” — Erica
“Arguably the best ice cream I've ever had, and all the dairy comes from the animals so it's fresh and local. They also generally have baby calves, piglets, and other cute critters around the front so you can see them being adorable as you eat your treat.” Recommended: “Peach Pie.” — Thomas Varley
“[This] will always be my favorite ice cream shop. I've lived in Maugansville, a neighborhood outside of Hagerstown, Maryland my whole life and the creamery has always been a favorite staple of mine. Their menu has evolved many, many times over the years with things like stuffed pretzels and pulled pork sandwiches being on the menu at one point. But the star has always been the huge variety of ice cream available. I love trying every new flavor they get in and it's always a huge portion for very cheap.” Recommended: “Flower pot sundays, 20 flavors of ‘lollipops’ (snow cone with soft serve inside it), and massive banana splits.” — Dylan Benedict
“The best, most crowded, vegan cold spot in town. They are the creators of the infamous tSoynamis, a vegan soy and coconut soft-serve ice cream topped with a variety of goodies to anyone's liking. This local shop has a variety of signature creations that we all love and enjoy often. However, it is their creative new off-the-menu items (i.e. Bone Thugs n' Carmely) that makes us come back daily or weekly.” Recommended: “Soy Capitan! It's Captain Crunch cereal, vanilla and chocolate swirl ice cream, and fresh strawberries.” — Vy Nguyen
“[They] serve a variety of beautiful and interesting flavors of ice cream, several non-sorbet vegan flavors, beer floats, and sorbet cocktails. Also, they parked their truck so it was blocking the driveway of the ICE facility and served free ice cream to all the protesters, with a big sign that said, ‘NO FASCISTS.’” Recommended: “Pirate (banana, molasses, dark rum).” — Sascha
“Located along an old rail line transformed into a multi-modal community trail, Broad Ripple Ice Cream Station (BRICS) provides a gathering spot for people of all ages to get a sweet treat. Locally owned and operated, you always run into someone you know at BRICS. And the ice cream is scrumptious.” Recommended: “It’s hard to choose just one. Whistle Stop Wake Up, Broad Ripple Blackberry, Monon Tracks.” — Sara VanSlambrook
“Selma’s is the oldest ice cream shop in Minnesota. It’s been around for at least a hundred years and is still in business. They sell old fashioned candy there as well, like candy cigarettes. I read somewhere that the building was originally an ammunition storage building during the Civil War that got converted into the ice cream shop it is today.” Recommended: “Blue Moon or Superman.” — Julia Kobilka
“The craziest, tastiest, most luxurious ice creams I've ever had the pleasure of eating! Giant Squid anyone? Or ice cream in a Yorkshire Pudding instead of a cone? Instagram perfection with the taste to follow it up.” Recommended: “They change all the time, making the most of local fresh produce. Tamarillo, pineapple, bitters, macadiama, and bee pollen is a current one!” — Helen Gurley
Established in 1887, their 1910 milk wagon is on display in the ice cream shop today. Lots of folks rave about the creamery at close by Penn State, but after living in the area for 30 years I can tell you that Meyer's ice cream is superior. Recommended: "They are all delicious, but I'm partial to their black raspberry." — Kelly Walker
“It’s located in an old shopping building and even though it’s quite out of the way, many people go there for a value scoop of high quality ice cream or sorbet in a store that’s small, warm, and cozy. They do amazing flavours with high quality ingredients and also do in depth research about new flavors, especially ones that highlight local flavors and tastes.” Recommended: “White Chocolate Nori.” — Oscar
"They make gelato that tastes like your right back in Italy! They also make their own Philly-style Italian water ice recipe like no other. A mom & pop shop that looks like you are walking into a whimsical snow land of wonder (with a cherry on top)." Recommends: "So many but one favorite is Coconut Basil." — Avril Losacco
“[They craft] unique and classic flavors with 100% natural ingredients and colors in a picturesque, small downtown location. They began seven years ago as a fundraiser to support a local family’s child adoption, and they still partner with adoption support organizations today. I love that they like to experiment with flavors and you never know when there might be something new in the case. Some of their flavors include Caramel Bourbon, Happy Goat, Lavender Mint Chip, Carrot Top Sorbet, Gunpowder & Roses, and my son’s favorite is Blackout Lemonade which is a rich black color.” Recommended: “I personally like their coffee flavors.” — Sara K. Anderson
Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
The man known as Margarida refused to let prejudice affect his flashy officiating style.
Every four years, as the FIFA World Cup approaches, a video emerges from the dusty threads of soccer fandom and circulates across social media platforms. The 2014 video is a pixelated compilation of a soccer (or football, depending on where you live) referee officiating while gleefully running backwards and scissor kicking.
When he gives players yellow cards, he does not simply take them out of his pocket. That’s too boring for Clésio Moreira dos Santos. Rather, the Brazilian referee bends his back to a 45-degree angle, jolts his left arm into the air, and bestows the fouled player the card, as if it were a gift. Sometimes he high-knees to a corner, bows down, and points to the corner with his index finger, starkly indicating where the corner kick should be played.
While this may seem fun, Clésio wasn’t the first to trademark this spirited, jazzy officiating style. That title belongs to Jorge José Emiliano dos Santos, popularly nicknamed Margarida, who emerged as a figure in Brazilian refereeing during the 1980s. Jorge was an influence to Brazilian referees but his rise to prominence came with many challenges that reflected the time.
Growing up in Copacabana, Jorge never enjoyed the sea very much, but he loved the beaches. Not for relaxing or reading a book. He loved the beach because that’s where players met for quick pick-up soccer games. There, on the white sands of Copacabana, at age 13, Jorge learn how to officiate. He picked up the craft watching his idol on the field, Armando Marques, a well-respected referee who had officiated at high-level tournaments such as the 1966 World Cup. Marques was one of the early pioneers in Brazilian refereeing, and was known for his decisive officiating and making controversial calls. Debate wasn’t an option.
Over the years, Jorge started to referee bigger matches and tournaments outside the beach and in stadiums, such as the Rio de Janeiro league’s Guanabara Trophy in 1988. He garnered a fierce reputation as a no-nonsense referee in the machismo sport. “Expelling a player or calling out penalties is not for everyone,” said dos Santos in a March 25, 1988 Placar interview with sports journalist Martha Esteves. He later said, “I do not allow any type of indiscipline and demand respect.” For that he was well respected among some players and other referees, but his officiating style and his sexuality garnered him the most attention.
The end of the military dictatorship in Brazil ushered in the early beginnings of LGBTQ civil rights activism in the late 1980s. Gay civil rights activist Luiz Mott founded one of Brazil’s first gay rights organizations, Grupo Gay da Bahia. This development helped pave the way for other LGBTQ advocacy groups. While there was greater awareness, at the time, being queer and open about it made one vulnerable to violence and discrimination, and still does. According to Grupo Gay da Bahia, roughly “3,100 homosexuals” were killed from hate-motivated crimes between 1980 and 2009, and the rate of violence against gay Brazilians is increasing.
Jorge, along with Válter Senra, who went by the nickname “the Bianca,” Paulino Rodrigues da Silva, and Sérgio Cenedezi, were the few openly gay Brazilian referees facing such scrutiny in 1980s. According to Placar, the president of the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) at the time, João Ellis Filho, stated that no homosexual referee would manage the Copa União competition. During a 1988 match between Volta Redonda and Flamengo, the crowd hurled slurs at him and criticized what they regarded as his effeminate physicality. These homophobic incidents happened quite often, but they didn’t phase dos Santos.
“Good God! I’ve been hearing that for 20 years, why would I only now give it any weight?” He later added in the Placar interview, “I acknowledged my sexuality to a prejudiced country, which is a hard thing to do. Now if I happen to steal the show it’s because the game is boring.”
That fearlessness inspired many people in the Brazilian LGBTQ community, referees or not. Having seen Jorge on the field, some referees felt it was now safer for them to come out of the closet.
“When Margarida came on television to identify himself as a camp gay [man], we supported his visibility,” says Luiz Mott. He met Jorge for a few minutes in the late ‘80s during the recording of a show presented by Silvia Poppovic on the Canal Livre program. The show never aired, but Mott has fond memories of their encounter.
Despite the admiration, Jorge’s frankness and style often met swift retribution. Ironically, his muse, Armando Marques, committed during his tenure at CBF to ridding the organization of gay referees—or those, like Clésio, who were assumed to be gay. “I tend to say that I pioneered wearing such a feminine color,” Clésio says. (He wore pink on the field.) As the result of appearing more stereotypically feminine, “I was a victim of prejudices within the Brazilian refereeing boards.”
Still, this didn’t dampen Clésio’s enthusiasm to “get on the field and give my show.” Sergio Cenedezi received similar treatment. After being called the f-word, Cenedezi responded that he would rather be that than “a thief, like many of those who are today in charge of Brazilian football.”
Clésio left the CBF board in 2002. This independence gives him the freedom to officiate the way he wants to. The “gazelle step,” which is a seamless backpedal across the field, scissor kicking, and flashing of the arms before handing yellow card are Jorge moves, that Clésio has integrated into his officiating. He does not currently have goals to referee beyond officiating for small leagues.
“One day, I would still like to referee a World Cup final and leave the field to an ovation from the crowd. That would be glory for me,” said Jorge when asked about his future ambitions. But that day never came. He died on January 23, 1995 from AIDS complications, a little less than a year after Brazil won the 1994 FIFA World Cup in Pasadena, California.
There haven’t been any openly gay Brazilian referees at the FIFA World Cup, and those who do officiate at higher levels, are too afraid to come out. Speaking anonymously to VICE Sports in 2016, one top referee said he fears the consequences of revealing his homosexuality. He “chose to end a relationship with another man so as to not put his career at risk.” But for prominent referees and assistants like Sérgio Cenedezi or gay soccer leagues like LiGay, Jorge represents more than just a funny video. The images of him officiating in gazelle style carry the hope that their beloved sport will one day accept them for who they are.
The center has spread spicy knowledge for decades.
It's hard to imagine New Mexico without its peppers, which in the region retain the Spanish spelling of chile. The long pods, whether green or red, are a tasty part of local life, where they're essential ingredients, an artistic motif, and a $500 million annual industry. If farmers or pepper-lovers in the state (and beyond) have any questions about their colorful crop, there's only one place to go: the Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University, the only research institution in the world solely dedicated to chiles.
It's been around for a while. Last year, the Chile Pepper Institute celebrated its 25th anniversary. Consisting of a visitor’s center, a shop for chile seeds and products, and a teaching garden bursting with offbeat pepper varieties, the Institute features the work of the 25 NMSU faculty who research and develop new chile varieties. It's work that goes back to New Mexico State University’s earliest days, says Dr. Paul Bosland, a plant breeder and founder of the Institute. In fact, the center's roots go back to the school's first horticulturist, whose influence on spicy, pepper-bearing foods and products was seminal. "There was no New Mexican chile pepper prior to Fabian Garcia," Bosland says.
Bosland considers Fabian Garcia the father of Mexican-American food for his work with chiles. But the man's own background was humble. Born in Chihuahua, Mexico, in 1871, he was orphaned soon afterwards. His grandmother took young Garcia across the border, where they settled in New Mexico. When his grandmother became housekeeper to an orchardist, Garcia started his horticultural education. After graduating in the first class of what is today’s New Mexico State University, he became the institution's first horticulturist, responsible for developing crops for New Mexican farmers.
His influence was wide reaching, Bosland says, and forms the basis of NMSU’s current chile dominance. Seeing the rich but small-scale local chile culture, he embarked on a mission of “chile improvement” to spread the vegetable across the county. He wanted a more uniform, shippable pepper. According to Bosland, Garcia also strove to make New Mexican peppers less spicy for non-Hispanic tastes. His New Mexico No.9 pepper, which he released in 1921, laid the foundation for the canned chile and hot sauce industry, while making delectable dishes such as chiles rellenos widely available. Yet Garcia worked with everything from fruit trees to pecans, and even introduced sweet onions, the basis for today’s Vidalia variety, to America from Spain.
Bosland is his thrice-removed successor. He’s the university’s fourth designated pepper breeder, and he founded the Institute 25 years ago, in part to carry on NMSU’s long chile history. Another goal was to sell NMSU’s chile seeds and products, which, in the days before the internet, required a physical storefront. Starting the Institute wasn’t easy. Originally, it operated out of a closet, Bosland recalls. There weren’t a lot of models, either. “We looked at the Apple Institute in Washington, which promoted apples, and the Tobacco Institute, which in those days promoted safe smoking,” he says with a chortle. Neither was the right model for what Bosland wanted: to become “the center of the universe for chile pepper answers” while supporting the state’s spicy industry.
The pepper world is a little different from Garcia’s day, though. For one thing, people are entranced by furiously hot peppers. In 2007, NMSU announced that Bosland had analyzed a tremendously spicy pepper: the bhut jolokia, from the Assam region of India. It was unexpected. Bosland had been burned (“pun intended,” he says) before by claims that this or that pepper was the world’s hottest. But to his surprise, the bhut jolokia’s heat surpassed a million Scoville units: the hottest ever recorded at the time. The pepper received a Guinness World record for the hottest chile ever discovered, though several peppers have now surpassed it. Bosland himself notes that the pepper is now widely known by its English name, ghost pepper, “because it was so hot you gave up the ghost.” Yet he insists that there’s more to chile taste beyond heat. “Most people think of the heat, the hotness,” Bosland says. “We know there's more than 300 compounds that give so many different flavors.”
There’s lot of misinformation about peppers, in fact. For one thing, green and red chiles come from the same plant: The red ones are simply riper. For another, a chile’s main spicy kick is not held in the seeds, as many people believe. Instead, it’s typically in the filmy placental tissue, which sometimes rubs off on the seeds, making them spicy.
Another myth Bosland debunks is that vibrant ornamental peppers are poisonous. They’re not, though they aren’t specifically grown to be eaten. NMSU has released many ornamental chile varieties over the years, even in shades of shocking pastel purple. (Bosland says ornamental chile breeding is a fun pastime; plus, it’s good practice for students.) One series of ornamental peppers is named for holidays: an orange-and-black variety called “Halloween,” the jester-colored “April Fool’s,” and even a green-and-brown “Earth Day.” According to Bosland, the names of these NMSU-bred peppers are an elaborate in-joke. Until the 1950s, red-and-green ornamental pepper bushes were given as Christmas gifts. But the popularity of the poinsettia flower displaced Christmas ornamental peppers almost completely. As a tongue-in-cheek revenge, “we took all of the other holidays,” Bosland says. The colors aren’t limited to ornamental peppers, either: Recently, the Institute released lemon-yellow and pumpkin-orange jalapeño varieties (also known as pumpkin spice). Bosland thinks their bright colors will be a boon to growers. “People like to buy with their eyes.”
Many of these peppers grow in the Institute’s garden: over 150 varieties from around the world. From July until late fall, pepper bushes are heavily weighed with their colorful bounty. The garden has a yearly theme: This year, yellow chiles are highlighted. Visitors can either take a guided tour or stroll among the peppers themselves. Bosland says that NMSU’s international students are often bowled over when they see peppers from their homeland. A common reaction is “Oh, that’s my chile,” Bosland says. “That attachment to chiles is universal.”
After all, peppers now belong to everyone. Though they originated in the Americas, the Columbian Exchange of New World plants to the rest of the world made chile peppers an essential part of cuisines worldwide. People feel passionately about peppers, Bosland included—he started out breeding “cold vegetables” such as broccoli and cabbage, before realizing that studying chile peppers could be the work of a lifetime. After all, “it's a vegetable, it's a spice, it’s a food coloring agent, and it’s an ornamental.” (Though he refuses to name a favorite pepper. “I love all my children,” he says.)
Bosland says he recently spoke with NASA about growing chiles in space—the idea being that chile peppers could provide essential nutrients for astronauts on the long haul to Mars. Having helped peppers conquer the world, the Chile Pepper Institute may soon send them to the stars.
Last week, a small new island was born. It fit the major criteria—surrounded by water and smaller than a continent. The island emerged just a few yards off the coast of Hawaii’s Big Island, formed by the lava that’s been pouring from Kīlauea since May.
Just a few days later, the small island had transformed. By Monday, July 16, according to the USGS, it had become an isthmus.
The island formed near the northern end of the area where lava from a productive fissure has been flowing into the ocean. USGS observers first reported the island's existence on Friday, when they described it as “a small island…just offshore the northern edge that continues to ooze lava.” At the coast, the lava continues to flow underwater, and most likely, USGS said, the island was formed by pressure in that submerged flow, which pushed a hump of lava up above the water level.
Below the waves, though, that island was still connected to the larger lava flow, and over the weekend, the distance between Big Island and tiny new island was filled in. After a short life as an independent island, this new piece of land became part of a larger one.
Lava often adds new land to Hawaii, and as Motherboard reports, Kīlauea has added more than a thousand acres of land to Hawaii over the past decades. All new “lava extensions” automatically belong to the state.
But they serve an important purpose for everyone living on the island, too. On its own, the little island would have likely disappeared quickly, as the waves eroded it away. On a larger scale, though, that’s happening to all of the Hawaiian islands. New land formed by lava helps extend the life of the island; it’ll still erode away, but it’ll give the former shore a break from the corrosive power of the ocean.
Detailed maps of the heavens weren't just for scholars.
If you lived in London in 1822, you might have found solace in imagination. With skies dark with soot, rivers sludgy with sewage, and streets crowded with people, carts, and waste of all sorts, perhaps you looked to the heavens for some kind of escape.
For a relatively modest fee, you could stoke your flights of fancy by flipping through a celestial atlas. These volumes placed an otherworldly landscape in the palms of your hands, and invited readers to search the sky for the constellations on its pages. When night fell—assuming you could glimpse anything through the smog and London's cloudy weather—you could find crabs and bulls and mythological heroes far above your head.
Constellations were first described in ancient times, but it wasn’t until the early 17th century that these images were compiled into comprehensive atlases. In 1603, Johann Bayer, a German cartographer, partnered with the artist Alexander Mair to produce a hefty volume called Uranometria, which spanned the entire heavens. Its 51 copper-plate engravings wrangled stars into recognizable, wondrous creatures and scenes, often drawn from the ancient myths that gave the constellations their names.
They were drowning in whimsy, but that didn't dilute the rigor. Star catalogues and visual atlases were intended for scholars and scientists, explains Matthew Edney, a professor of geography at the University of Southern Maine, and curator of the exhibition Art of the Spheres: Picturing the Cosmos Since 1600, at the Osher Map Library in Portland. The maps were annotated with coordinates, so astronomers could locate constellations in the sky and know whether they were looking in the right vicinity, even if there was some wonkiness with their telescopes. “They were meant to summarize, 'This is the state of the knowledge,’” Edney says.
Then, as the 17th century wore on, “more and more people began making more and more celestial maps for a public audience,” Edney says. As printing prices fell, “cheaper and cheaper variants” sprung up alongside bigger, more expensive tomes.
The use of copperplate engravings was more cost-effective and forgiving than woodblock printing, which wasn't well-suited to the level of detail the mapmakers aspired to. Unlike the black-and-white prints intended for scholars or the most erudite amateurs, the more popular maps could be lavishly colored. Scholars might have scoffed at these versions, Edney notes, because the richest of the colors—such as red pigments—could actually obscure details in the images.
Colorful plates weren't ideal for scholarship, but as far as the public was concerned, they were spectacular to look at—especially when they depicted stars that the average person could spot without any expensive equipment.
The Celestial Atlas, by Scottish schoolteacher Alexander Jamieson, was one of the ones designed for nonexperts. Printed in London in 1822, its 30 illustrations include only constellations that could be seen with the naked eye.
Measuring just nine inches by seven inches, it was easy to carry around. And the price was just 15 shillings for a black-and-white version (111 shillings and sixpence for color). This wouldn't have been an impulse purchase, but it was far cheaper than its oversized forebears. (Jamieson's volume is rare today, with a price tag to match: A complete copy is for sale at $3,201 on AbeBooks.)
Astronomy was a popular pastime, but it’s hard to say for sure how many buyers snatched up the volumes made for the general public, Edney says. “Archives just really haven’t survived,” Edney adds, “at least not that they’ve been found, catalogued, or made available.” We do know that Jamieson released a second edition just a few months after the first, suggesting it was flying off shelves. Striking aesthetic similarities appear in a set of constellation cards called Urania's Mirror, printed a few years later. The cards were stippled with punched holes, to allow light to pass through and illuminate the constellations. This sincere flattery could be another sign that the first run had been a hit, and it is easy to see why. Atlas Obscura has more illustrations from Jamieson's Celestial Atlas below.
The burned crumbs shed light on prehistoric hunter-gatherers’ diets.
Bread-making around the world has evolved from a similar, ancient approach of combining flour, water, and sometimes yeast. But for prehistoric societies with limited tools, making bread wasn’t so simple. Given how laborious it was to make bread thousands of years ago, it’s long been associated with settled Neolithic societies—and only after the advent of agriculture.
That's no longer the case. Today, a team of researchers from the University of Copenhagen, the University College London, and the University of Cambridge released a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences detailing their discovery of 14,400-year-old crumbs from a flatbread. The archaeological site, known as Shubayqa 1, is located in the Black Desert of northeastern Jordan and was home to Natufian hunter-gatherers. The flatbread remains are not only the oldest instance of bread found to date, but also preeminent examples of how bread-making existed even before agriculture developed some 4,000 years later.
“Nobody had found any direct evidence for production of bread, so the fact that bread predates agriculture is kind of stunning,” says Tobias Richter, a University of Copenhagen archaeologist who co-authored the paper. “Because making bread is quite labor-intensive, and you don’t necessarily get a huge return for it. So it doesn’t seem like an economical thing to do.” That’s because breadmaking doesn’t just involve baking: Back then, it would have also involved kneading, grinding cereals into fine grains, and dehusking plants.
Before the find at Shubayqa 1, the closest evidence of bread-like cereal meals had been identified at the Neolithic site Çatalhöyük, in Turkey. “We really didn’t think up until now that in the Natufian [period], people were making bread,” he adds. “We’ve just pushed that 5,000 years earlier.”
For years, researchers have been excavating Shubayqa 1 to learn more about the Natufians’ diet and lifestyle. “Natufian is a very interesting period in Near Eastern prehistory, because it does mark a real point of departure with some of the preceding periods,” Richter says. “They built some of the world’s earliest stone dwellings, and appear to have been more sedentary than periods before then.”
Richter says that compared to other Natufian sites, Shubayqa 1 is unusual in how well-preserved its plants are, and it reveals intriguing possibilities about the relationship between social change, economic shifts, and climate change. Previous findings suggest, for instance, that the Natufians had high-carbohydrate diets, hunted animals such as gazelles, and, as evidenced by their elaborate burials, had well-established cultural rituals.
The bread discovery happened by chance, when Amaia Arranz Otaegui, an archaeobotanist at the University of Copenhagen, found unidentifiable charred remains in fireplaces at Shubayqa 1. She took her findings to University College London’s Institute of Archaeology, which has a trove of modern plants that archaeologists can compare their findings to. There, she enlisted the help of Lara González Carretero, an authority on prehistoric bread. Using electronic microscopy, she determined that the charred remains—which Richter describes as “the kind of stuff you might find at the bottom of your toaster”—was likely evidence of unleavened bread.
Until recently, food remains weren’t given much attention within archaeological digs. “Mostly up until now archaeobotanists have been interested in seeds, wood fragments, and nuts and so forth,” Richter says. “It’s fairly new that people have started to look at food remains in these sediment samples that we’re excavating from various sites.” Several years ago, a team of researchers excavating the Natufian site Huzuq Musa (in Israel’s Jordan Valley) processed wild barley and loaves of unleavened bread using 12,500-year-old conical mortars. Some experts have speculated that bread-baking stretches back even further than 14,400 years ago.
Over the years, fossilized loaves and bread-making grains alike have been unearthed at archaeological sites, such as Italy’s Pompeii and Ohalo II, in what’s now considered Israel, respectively. But the recently discovered flatbread remains at Shubayqa 1 bear similarities to those found at various other sites around Turkey and Europe, too. "So we now know that bread-like products were produced long before the development of farming,” said Arranz Otaegui. “The next step is to evaluate if the production and consumption of bread influenced the emergence of plant cultivation and domestication at all.”
How Natufians made this bread, exactly, remains up for debate. “What’s quite surprising from the work we’ve done so far is that the flour they used is really fine, and you wonder, ‘How the hell did they do that?’” Richter says. “[It’s] really high-quality, so they must have spent a lot of time getting it into a really fine state.” He says the team has been awarded another grant to study food production, so making a very old flatbread is on the table. “One of the things we want to do next is to try and reproduce this bread experimentally,” Richter says. “And see what it tasted like.”
Meet Valetudo, a moon that doesn't just go with the flow.
A rogue neighbor can make life unpredictable. Putting out the trash a day early, playing loud music at all hours, never getting around to fixing that fence. Jupiter's moons are getting a sense of what that feels like now, with a newly identified resident careening toward conflict with everyone else. This new moon, called Valetudo, is a bit of a renegade.
The worst-case scenario for Valetudo? It’s more serious than an icy glare from the front stoop. “Essentially, it's going to be like a bug in the windshield,” says Scott Sheppard, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C. “It’s going to slap into something.”
Sheppard is leading a team that scrutinizes the darkest reaches of the solar system. To get the clearest, crispest, most sweeping views from Earth, it helps to get far, far away from other man-made creations, such as electric lights and buildings. “Magnificent desolation,” Sheppard says, is the ideal. "You want to be in the middle of nowhere.” That’s why, in March 2017, the team was studying the sky from the Cerro-Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. The observatory is nestled high in the desert mountains of the Atacama region. It’s a few hours’ drive from the nearest city, and the night sky is dazzling. If you go outside late at night and let your eyes adapt, Sheppard says, “the sky blows you away."
The team had planned to use the observatory’s Blanco four-meter telescope to scout for objects way out, beyond Pluto, and they also decided to train their gaze on Jupiter's neighborhood in the night sky. They knew that the solar system's largest planet was going to be bright and hanging in the sky all night. “We could choose our field of observation to be very close to Jupiter, so we could look for things moving at Jupiter's rate—foreground objects, moving quite fast," while still on the hunt for relatively slower-moving objects in the fringes of the solar system, Sheppard says. “We could kill two birds with one stone: survey for Jupiter moons and very distant objects at the same time.”
Before Sheppard’s team conducted their survey, there were 69 known Jovian moons, but there's always been reason to believe there are quite a few more. Because the planet is so big and bright, researchers surmised that unrecorded moons could be faint, or even obscured, or quite far from the gas giant. The telescope in Chile, with a powerful digital camera that can shade against glare and scattered light, provided Sheppard and his collaborators with a wider and more detailed view than had been possible before. After their observations and more than a year of follow-ups and confirmations, they announced this week that they found 12 new moons.
As a whole they're not so unusual or remarkable, except, perhaps, for that rogue, Valetudo. Measuring less than a mile in diameter, it’s the smallest of Jupiter’s known moons, and Sheppard describes it as an “oddball.”
It doesn’t behave like the other moons, which tend to fall into a few categories. The largest among them are the Galilean satellites—Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto—large moons that orbit close to the planet. They are prograde moons, meaning that they orbit in the same direction as Jupiter's rotation. Some of the outer moons, on the other hand, are retrograde moons, which orbit in the opposite direction. In their recent observations, Sheppard’s team documented nine of these (along with two prograde, closer-in moons). It may sound chaotic, but since “they’re at different distances, they don’t really ever interact with one another,” Sheppard says. But not Valetudo.
The small moon rotates at the distance of the retrograde moons, but it's traveling in the other direction. It crosses the orbits of other moons, and that’s where things might get dicey. “It’s basically like you're driving down the highway in the wrong direction," Sheppard says. "Cars are coming right at you, and it's very likely you're going to have some head-on collision."
Sheppard and his colleagues speculate that Valetudo was probably once much larger, but was ground down, over the course of billions of years, as a result of collisions. The researchers even wonder if the crashes are responsible for the swarms of smaller Jovian moons we see today. Researchers at the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center used Sheppard’s team’s data to estimate when another collision might happen. The best forecast, for now, is some time in the next billion years. (“Big in terms of human timescales, but not that big in terms of the solar system,” Sheppard says.)
The view from the Chilean mountaintop taught researchers a lot, but there’s more to learn. The new moons are faint, so researchers haven’t been able to spot features on their surfaces or clues to what they’re made of. “We think they're something in between the rocky asteroids, which are interior to Jupiter, and the icy comets, which are exterior to Neptune,” Sheppard says. “These objects are probably some intermediate-type composition, half-rock and half-ice, something like that.” It's not clear when Valetudo will get a close-up, but it ought to be before anything goes splat.
Tāne Mahuta is one of the oldest kauri trees in the world.
No one knows exactly how old Tāne Mahuta is. Perhaps 1,250 years. Perhaps 2,500. Living in the Waipoua Forest in New Zealand’s North Auckland Peninsula, the kauri tree reaches more than 160 feet tall and has grown more then 45 feet wide. Named for a Māori god, the son of the sky god Ranginui, Tāne Mahuta is one of the most beloved and revered trees of its kind.
But it’s surrounded with danger. About 200 feet from its base, the soil is tainted with a pathogen that kills kauri trees, and one expert is warning that Tāne Mahuta could already be infected.
Discovered a decade ago, the pathogen responsible for kauri dieback is a type of water mold, a relative of the microbes that caused the Great Potato Famine of Ireland. It lives in the soil, finding its way toward tree roots, where it attacks the tissues at the base of the trunk, killing the tree. It’s been spreading across New Zealand since at least the 1950s and is thought to have killed thousands of trees. There’s no known cure; the only way to protect trees is to keep it from spreading.
That’s difficult, though. The pathogen spreads through the forest on the feet of wild boars and other wide-ranging creatures, including humans. It can survive for at least six years on the sole of a shoe. In areas endangered by kauri dieback, park managers have added boardwalks and places to clean boots, The Guardian reports. But more dramatic measures are needed in some places. That might mean closing trails to the public or cutting down trees that already carry the pathogen.
None of this is simple. One forest manager told RadioNZthat even when trails are clocked people park nearby and find a way to go see trees like Tāne Mahuta.
Amanda Black, the scientist who called attention to Tāne Mahuta’s plight, has been critical of the government’s response to the threat of kauri dieback. Recently, kauri was reclassified as a threatened species for the first time. Tāne Mahuta's roots extend well beyond 200 feet from its base, so it's already in danger of being infected with the pathogen.
These towering trees have an imposing presence: In the novel Barkskins, Annie Proulx describes their “their great grey trunks like monster elephant legs… the bunched limbs at the tops of the sheer and monstrous stems.” They can seem like they have a life of their own. In decades past, forests of kauri have fallen to logging, but the species toughed out that threat. A tiny pathogen, though, could be the kauri’s downfall.
In the bright light of a summer afternoon, Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn is filled with a quiet life. Dark birds flitter and squawk among blocks of granite, black-eyed Susans burst into flower beside catacombs, and fresh-cut grass scents the air. Most of the stately gravestones are shaped into obelisks or headless angels or urns draped with stone cloth. Among these classic markers of memory, though, are surprises—grave markers that simulate the natural world that surrounds them. They are shaped like tree stumps.
Some of Green-Wood’s tree-stump markers take the shape of a cross. Others are simpler, four or five feet tall, with their branch shorn off. One is a short, cleanly cut stump, like one a hiker might rest on during a long walk through the woods. It marks the grave of Alfred Vanderwerken Jr., who died in 1906. “He loved nature,” the marker says.
Tree-stump tombstones like these can be found in graveyards across the country. They tend to surprise people who come across them, since they’re not quite what we expect to see at the head of a grave. They date mostly to 1880s to 1920s, when funerary art in the United States was moving away from the grand mausoleums and obelisks found elsewhere in Green-Wood. The tree-stump stones were part of a movement to turn the focus of death back to life, and they’re a unique form connected with the secret societies of the time. “They qualify as folk art,” writes Susanne Ridlen, in her 1999 book Tree-Stump Tombstones.
Ridlen documents more than 2,400 tree-stump tombstones in Indiana alone. They came at what she calls a transitional period in American funerary art, when cemeteries were emphasizing nature and markers grew more modest. The customs around death were starting to focus more on the deceased's life and the people left behind, and a tree proved a powerful symbol of both eternity and humanity, recalling the Bible's tree of life and tree of knowledge.
Ridlen identified many variations: the vertical stump, the double vertical stump, the horizontal stump, the ledger tree stump, the tree-stump bench, the tree-stump chair, the tree-stump cross, the simple tree-stump base. They could be decorated with birds, books, firearms, flowers, plants, anchors, or animals, along with the signs of fraternal orders, from unions to the Elks to the Freemasons.
One organization in particular became associated with tree-stump tombstones, the Woodmen of the World. Formed in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1890, the group served as a life-insurance company at a time when there was little financial security if a family's breadwinner died. Fraternal societies had started banding together to provide members’ families with a source of income after the death of a member. The Woodmen recruited rural men and prioritized hard work, selflessness, and other values. Its members had axes, and conducted drills with them in uniform, but their “woodcraft” was mostly symbolic, inspired by the image of pioneers clearing out forests to provide for their families.
Initially, the perks of becoming a Woodman included a free tombstone. The Woodmen headquarters created standard designs that it sent to local stonecutters. The tree wasn’t the only option, but given the organization’s name and traditions, it was a very popular choice. Later, the organization changed its policy so that it would only contribute $100 towards a tombstone, and only if it had the Woodmen of the World logo on it.
But Ridlen found the emblems and insignia of many other fraternal organizations on the tree-stump tombstones she examined. At the time, it was also simply a popular design that reflected contemporary attitudes about death and a desire to rejoin nature. Today’s tombstones tend to be modest, and a stone tree stump might seem ornate. In the 21st century, our ideas about joining nature after death have gone a step further. In addition to cremation with scattered ashes, some people choose to be buried without a headstone at all, or with a living tree to mark their final resting place.
Scottish and Spanish spirits have a symbiotic relationship.
Williams & Humbert, the cathedral-esque sherry bodega located in Jerez de la Frontera, Spain, brims with sepia-toned bullfighting posters, creaky Castilian furniture, and cobwebbed oak barrels. Sometimes, it even hosts Andalusian horse dancing set to the strums of flamenco guitar. But venture just beyond its stately main hall, and you could be in the Scottish Highlands: There, barrels branded with “The Macallan” stretch as far as the eye can see.
To most people who visit the Sherry Triangle—the wine region of southwest Spain bounded by Jerez de la Frontera, Sanlúcar de Barrameda, and Puerto de Santamaría—such a sight can be disorienting. But for centuries, the scotch and sherry industries have enjoyed a deep-rooted symbiosis that has kept both afloat through the ages, despite consumer taste varying wildly.
This relationship has its roots in 1587, when English privateer Sir Francis Drake paraded into Britain with 2,900 casks of sherry. The bottles were the spoils of his assault on the city of Cádiz, known as “Singeing of the King of Spain’s Beard.” The kidnapped wine was a sensation among the elite and sparked a sherry craze in Britain—and by affiliation, Scotland—that lasted centuries. Shakespeare, an avid sherry drinker, mentioned it at least 40 times in his works, and famously writes in Henry IV that a good sherry “makes the brain sharp, quick, and inventive; full of nimble, fiery, and beautiful ideas. The voice and tongue give birth to those ideas which, when they grow up, become excellent wit.”
Over time, this unslakable thirst for sherry left a surplus of empty barrels rolling around the British Isles. So it was only a matter of time before the Scots started storing their local moonshine, a clear distillate called uisge beatha (“water of life”), inside them. “Around 1800, distillers in Scotland realized that putting this clear spirit in a barrel not only made financial sense, but also made the liquid look and taste better,” says Mark Gillespie, founder of the WhiskyCast podcast.
It’s hard to overstate the importance of this development. Stuart MacPherson, Master of Wood at The Macallan, calls wood the “singular most important factor in creating a whisky’s character, since up to 80 percent of its final flavor comes from the cask.” (As evidenced by his title, MacPherson’s work involves sourcing timber from forests on two continents, overseeing barrel production in Spain, and transporting the seasoned casks to Scotland.)
That, along with the 1831 invention of the column still (which allowed for continuous distillation), paired with a newfound demand from France in the 1880s (due to a phylloxera outbreak that had devastated French brandy production), cemented scotch whisky’s place in the European market. By 1900, the scotch industry was booming. Across Scotland, warehouses were stacked floor to ceiling, all of them with sherry barrels filled with whisky.
Apart from a hiccup in production during World War II, scotch continued to see rising popularity, especially in the United States following Prohibition. But by the 1950s and ‘60s, a period many consider to be the “Golden Age” of scotch, the industry was changing. Newly-enacted “Standards of Identity” laws in the U.S. mandated that all bourbon be aged in new oak, which created a sudden glut of American oak barrels that scotch whisky houses could buy up at a fraction of the price of sherry barrels. “Whatever was cheapest, that’s what the distilleries purchased,” says Gillespie.
The nail in the coffin for the sherry cask came in 1981, when the Spanish government began requiring that all sherry be bottled in Spain prior to export. Any sherry casks that were sold to whisky makers in Scotland had to be shipped dry, which made the wood more prone to taint and cracking. Worse, sherry was already in dire straits back in Spain: Downward-spiraling prices, a sector-wide drop in quality, and evolving consumer tastes meant people weren’t buying sherry like they used to. Hardly anybody—neither bodegas (wine cellars) nor the whisky makers—was investing in new sherry casks, and Jerez’s cooperages came to a virtual standstill.
The gradual switch from sherry to bourbon barrels would have profound, lasting effects on the profile of scotch. “The signature flavors in a sherry cask-matured scotch are golden raisins, prunes, incense, and clove, while American oak tends to impart vanilla, coconut, sweet spice, and caramel,” says Dave Broom, spirits writer and author of The World Atlas of Whisky. “They’re completely different styles.”
Many whisky makers embraced the trend. In the 1970s and ‘80s, as spirits such as vodka and white rum became more and more fashionable (especially in the U.S.), the scotch industry was keen to experiment with lighter styles. American oak-matured whisky fit that bill. “Because scotch is driven by blends, blenders were able to slowly and subtly shift the profile of their spirit to suit this new palate,” Broom says. Most scotch drinkers didn’t even notice.
Yet in the sea change away from old sherry barrels, a few manufacturers dug in their heels—in sometimes questionable ways—to preserve scotch’s time-honored sherry flavor. For instance, from the 1960s through the 1980s, there was widespread use of a syrupy, boiled-down sherry product known as paxarette. “In those days, if you had an old, tired cask, you’d slop in some pax, roll it around, and it’d taste like sherry again,” says Broom, adding that the substance was outlawed in scotch production in 1989.
Shrewd distilleries such as The Macallan foresaw sherry’s demise and started dabbling in the art of vertical integration. If the bodegas could no longer provide quality casks, then it was time to do direct business with the cooperages and bodegas in Jerez. As early as the 1950s, The Macallan began snapping up new barrels and paying wineries in the area to “season” them with sherry before shipping them (empty, of course) to Scotland.
It paid off: Today, the scale of The Macallan’s operation is almost unfathomable. “There are four cooperages in Jerez, and we work with three of them,” says MacPherson. “Eighty-five percent of their barrels go to Edrington,” Macallan’s parent company, “and most of those go to The Macallan.” Around 70,000 new sherry-filled casks bearing The Macallan’s logo are marinating in Jerez as we speak. (The coopering exhibit at The Macallan’s new $189 million visitor center sheds light on this little-known process.)
Jerez’s bodegas and cooperages are bustling again, thanks, in large part, to heavy investments by the scotch industry. Williams & Humbert, one of The Macallan’s partner bodegas, has seen an uptick in sales after years of decline, and they have the capital to experiment with new products again. Their organic fino, released in July, is a first in the industry. “Sherry is back in style,” says Rafael Medina Martínez, director of operations.
In the same vein, Lustau broadened its repertoire in 2017 to include a new sherry-based vermouth, and some Tío Pepe bottles just got a pop-art makeover inspired by Andy Warhol. These developments hint that the centuries-old sherry houses are nimble enough to capitalize on the worldwide sherry craze.
According to the Regulatory Council of Sherry Wines, offbeat sherry types such as amontillado, oloroso, and palo cortado saw a seven percent increase in sales in 2017, while premium sherries saw a two percent increase. (Considering that the sherry market was in virtual freefall until recently, these seemingly minor gains are significant).
Nearly a third of the 60,000 barrels at Williams & Humbert are dedicated solely to The Macallan. But with the price of a single seasoned sherry cask hovering around $1,300—astronomically more expensive than ex-Bourbon casks, according to MacPherson—it all begs the question: Is scotch aged in sherry-seasoned wood inherently better than the stuff matured in American whiskey barrels?
“It comes down to individual taste,” says Gillespie. “There are people who hate the heavy, tannic notes of sherry-cask whiskies and people who love them. Sometimes the best whiskies result when you blend both types.” Broom goes as far as to say that the use of sherry casks is “not a prerequisite for quality” in scotch, adding that many of the sherry-aged whiskies on the market are aged in wood so old that the influence of sherry is basically nil.
Does sherry have a place in the 21st century? That question dogged Chris Hoban, the brand ambassador of Isle of Raasay, a new whisky company that began distilling in September. “The spirit we’re aiming to produce is on the lighter side, but ... I’m interested in emulating whiskies from the past in addition to creating new whiskies for the future.” To many young up-and-comers such as Hoban, scotch isn’t just about flavor profiles, it’s also about heritage. He’s taking his first recon trip to Jerez in September.
Whether you’re a world-renowned name like The Macallan or a newcomer like Isle of Raasay, in the world of scotch and sherry, you always have to have one foot in the past and the other in the future. The tables could very well turn in sherry’s favor once again (hey, things do lookpromising). Citing a conversation with the people at The Glenlivet when they were adding a new wing to their operation, Hoban says: “They were making decisions based on a 100-year forecast. One hundred years. There aren’t many industries that have to think that far ahead.”
These little guys would share a bag of Takis with you.
In the Kunming Institute of Zoology, in Yunnan, China, there live about 2,000 long-nosed, inquisitive-faced tree shrews. Tree shrews make good animal models for studying human diseases: They’re more genetically similar to us than, say, a mouse, but they're also smaller than most of our closest relatives, the primates. So researchers at the Kunming Institute keep a bunch of them around, in order to learn more about their evolutionary history, physiology, and molecular makeup.
But as these researchers learned recently, even the best models are full of surprises. "[We] were trying to find the favorite food of the tree shrew," writes Kunming Institute biologist Shilong Yang in an email. As Yang and his colleagues detail in a recent paper in PLOSBiology, they were shocked by the answer: chili peppers.
Chilis are hot because of capsaicinoids, molecules that bind to receptors in our mouths and trick us into thinking we're experiencing actual pain. In peppers, they likely evolved as a defense against bugs, fungi, and hungry animals.
Mostly, it worked: "In the context of mammals… only humans [have] been known to actively consume spicy chili peppers rich in pungent capsaicinoids," writes Yang in an email. (Psychologists and philosophers argue about what accounts for this particular questionable decision—in 2010, one told the New York Times it might have to do with the thrill of "enjoy[ing] events that are innately negative.") Birds aren't affected by capsaicin, and tend to serve as important seed dispersers for chili plants. But almost all of our fellow mammals, including dogs and elephants, do experience spiciness, and prefer to keep things bland.
As this new research shows, though, tree shrews have found their own way around this limitation. When given the peppers in the lab, they "actively fed" on them, the paper reports. (You can watch one nibble enthusiastically here.) Researchers then went out to the field and found that, in the wild, tree shrews love to eat a particular pepper plant called Piper boehmeriaefolium, and vastly prefer it to other plants, including ginger and garlic.
Just to make sure, the researchers synthesized the particular capsaicinoid found in Piper boehmeriaefolium, and used it to make the shrews some snacks: spicy corn pellets, like a rodent version of Flamin Hot Cheetos. Mice hated the pellets, and barely touched them. But the shrews gobbled them right up. What's more, adding more capsaicinoids—in other words, upping the hotness—"caused a slight increase in the food intake," the researchers write.
What accounts for this flaming of the shrew? As it turns out, in this regard, tree shrews are more like birds than humans. Rather than a rarified taste for pain, they have a mutation in a particular protein, the TRPV1 ion channel, which is colloquially known as the "capsaicin receptor." This mutation lowers the shrew's sensitivity to capsaicinoids, allowing them to munch on peppers with abandon.
Is this just the beginning? Will we find that jaguars love jalapeños, that schnauzers scarf scotch bonnets, that hamsters hanker for habaneros? Yang thinks not. "The common mammals have all been tested," he writes. "We believe that the tree shrew is an exception." Man has been knocked off yet another very specific pedestal.
It's hard to chase waterfalls in the city of Chicago. Although there is a smattering of decorative cascades—Stearns Quarry Park, for example, has a water feature made out of recycled sidewalk slabs—there's only one chute in the city that's attached to an actual waterway. It's a four-foot-tall tumble, located right where the north branch of the Chicago River meets the North Shore Channel. Pedestrians can see it by walking through River Park, near the city's northeast flank.
Soon, though, even the most dedicated seekers will have to stick to the rivers and lakes that they're used to. As Chicago Tonight reports, the River Park waterfall is being torn down sometime in the next week, because it makes the river impassable for fish.
As DNAinfo details, the waterfall was built back in 1910, after city authorities dug the North Shore Channel and restructured the Chicago River to make it flow away from the city. This caused the water level to drop significantly at the junction, so the city built a dam in order to concentrate the water's flow and prevent erosion. This dam—also the only one in Chicago—then became the site of "the only 'overflowing water' on a waterway in the city," the outlet reports. (Sometime in the intervening years, a hole was cut in the dam, meaning that when the river level is low, the waterfall is even shorter—it clocks in at about a foot tall.)
Although it did this job faithfully for over a century, there was a downside: the waterfall prevented fish from swimming upstream. As DNAInfo reported in spring of 2017, when the Army Corps of Engineers did a census of the water between the dam and a footbridge a few hundred feet upstream, they found one solitary green sunfish. The plan is to tear down the dam and replace it with a series of three "riffle pools,"small piles of rocks that act like rapids. This will smooth out the elevation change, allowing fish to swim upstream, as well as letting canoers and kayakers paddle through without portaging.
While some want to have it their way or nothing at all, many are cheering the change. Margaret Frisbie of Friends of the Chicago River told Chicago Tonight that fish will colonize the upstream area quickly, improving the water quality. This in turn "gets more people out on the river because it feels safer and looks better," she added.
Think they're moving too fast? You'd better get out there: the waterfall removal is set to begin within the week.
The pressure cooker led directly to the invention of the steam engine.
From a strictly culinary perspective, food historians will likely remember 2017 as the year of the Instant Pot. The device started the year as a hip-but-obscure cousin to the Crock-Pot and ended it as the central relic in a home-cooking cult. Buoyed by its emergence as the star item of last year’s Prime Day sale, the device also conquered 2017’s Black Friday bonanza. According to the NPD Group, sales for multi-cookers rose 79 percent by the end of December 2017, exceeding $300 million.
For chefs and other experienced cooks, the Instant Pot’s meteoric rise was welcome, if not humorous. While new converts marveled at what emerged from their gadget, veterans saw the Instant Pot for what it truly was: an electronic pressure cooker—a small but notable improvement over a stovetop technology that's had a place in restaurants and kitchens since the early 20th century. As food journalist Nick Kindelsperger put it in the Chicago Tribune: “The greatest trick the Instant Pot played on people was convincing them that they were trying something new. Pressure cookers, slow cookers, rice cookers, steamers—these are appliances that have been around for years.”
Just how many years it’s been around is surprising. While industrial limitations precluded the mass production of pressure cookers until the early 1930s, the technology itself dates to a late-17th-century device with a name fit for an early Metallica record: The Digester of Bones.
Invented by the Frenchman Denis Papin in 1679, the Digester resulted from landmark experiments involving the utility and power of steam. The ramifications transcended the kitchen: Working with the same basic science that underpins the Instant Pot, Papin’s first pressure cooker also played a significant role in the development of the steam engine—a world-changing device that launched the Industrial Revolution. How this happened is a story of innovation, collaboration, and Papin’s long-forgotten legacy.
Little is known of Papin’s childhood. Born on August 22, 1647, in Blois, France, he studied medicine at the University of Angers between 1661 and 1662, and likely earned his doctorate at the same institution in 1669. He moved to Paris soon after, where he met and befriended Christiaan Huygens, the famous Dutch polymath. Throughout the early 1670s, the pair conducted experiments on an air pump. After publishing the results of these tests in 1674, Papin moved on to England, where he launched a similar project with the chemist Robert Boyle at the Royal Society of London.
During this period, Papin started work on his first pressure cooker. Inspired by his vacuum-based experiments with Huygens, he began to measure and harness the power of compressed steam. By 1678, he’d realized this science’s potential culinary application, a direction that initially embarrassed him. In the preface to his first book on the subject, A new Digester or Engine for softening Bones (1681), Papin all but apologized for his pursuit before making an impassioned argument for its necessity. “Cookery is such an ancient Art,” he wrote, “The use thereof is so general and so frequent, and people have been so earnest upon the improving of it, that it seems if any could be brought to perfection, this should be it.”
By 1679, Papin had completed a working model, which he referred to as “the bone digester”—so named because it not only cooked food, but also softened bones for the production of fertilizer. According to David Wootton, author of The Invention of Science: A New History of the Scientific Revolution, the Digester was nothing short of a revelation. A breakthrough in steam technology, it relied on simple but impactful science. “Making the Digester involved understanding that pressure relates to the temperature at which things boil,” he says. “And when things boil, the result is pressure from steam. You’ve got a double process when you put something in a pressure cooker: You’re raising the temperature at which steam emerges, and you’re also producing pressure from the steam.”
Papin’s initial device required a custom-built furnace, which rested directly beneath a series of hollow cylinders—two made from brass, one from glass or pewter. Users placed food and water within the latter. The top of the device was sealed with a lid and kept taught with screws. Most notably, the device featured a safety valve with a weight on its end. When pressure reached unsafe levels, the weight lowered the valve and released excess steam, thereby preventing explosions.
Though bigger than the devices it later inspired, the Digester was strikingly similar to modern pressure cookers both in its basic components and its efficiency. “The principals are exactly the same,” Wootton says. “You’re cooking faster because you’re cooking at a higher temperature, and because you are doing it in steam, you’re not going to burn or dry things out. You’re also releasing marrow while cooking animal substances until you can produce various sorts of broths and jellies.”
Papin first presented the Digester to the Royal Society in 1679. The device greatly impressed his peers, a group that included the likes of Isaac Newton, Robert Hooke, and Antonie van Leeuwenhoek. In 1681, the Society commissioned Papin’s first book: a treatise that simultaneously served as a construction guide, an experiment log, and a cookbook. In it, he detailed his success in cooking mutton, beef, lamb, rabbits, pigeons, and various jellies made from fruit and animal byproducts.
A year after the book’s release, Papin put his Digester to the ultimate test. On April 12, 1682, he used it to prepare an elaborate meal for the Royal Society. Member John Evelyn recorded the experience in his diary. Like many of today’s Instant Pot fanatics, he quickly became enamored with the quality of pressure-cooked food. “The hardest bones of beef itself, and mutton, were made as soft as cheese,” he wrote, “Without water or other liquor, and with less than eight ounces of coals, producing an incredible quantity of gravy; and for close of all, a jelly made of the bones of beef, the best for clearness and good relish, and the most delicious that I had ever seen, or tasted.”
Evelyn’s account suggests that by the end of the evening, Papin had wowed a group that prided itself on impartiality. “This philosophical supper,” he wrote, “Caused much mirth among us, and exceedingly pleased all the company. I sent a glass of the jelly to my wife, to the reproach of all that the ladies ever made of their best hartshorn.”
As the Royal Society celebrated his new invention, Papin soon realized the device might have wider applications. Because early pressure cookers sometimes exploded, he continued to refine the revolutionary safety valve—a component he mastered in his final version of the Digester in the late 1680s. While watching this valve operate, he noted how the steam in his device created an immense upward thrust. “What you’ve got there is a steam boiler,” Wootton says. “All you need do is attach that to a piston and you’ve begun to produce a steam engine.”
After publishing his second book on the Digester in 1687, Papin fully pursued this end. Within months, he realized his pressure cooker made for the ideal prime mover in a piston-based engine. About this time, he relocated to Leipzig, Germany. He spent the next few years there developing his device, which he eventually detailed in the September 1688 and June 1690 editions of the scientific journal Acta Eruditorum.
As described by the 19th-century engineer Robert Thurston, Papin powered his engine with a cylinder similar to his pressure cooker, which he attached to a piston connected to a cord over two pulleys. He filled this cylinder with a “small quantity” of water and lit a fire beneath it. The resultant steam drove the piston upward, where a latch held it in place. He then removed the fire, causing the steam to condense and form a vacuum. This pulled the piston downward, which engaged the rope over the pulleys. The device could lift 60 pounds once a minute, but Papin believed a larger machine could raise as much as 8,000 pounds four feet per minute.
This device was nearly identical to later engines that fueled the Industrial Revolution. Unfortunately, Papin soon abandoned his scheme after becoming distracted by a piston-free engine patented by Thomas Savery in 1698. “Papin,” Thurston wrote in 1878, “having earned the honor of having invented the first steam-engine of the typical form which has since become so universally applied, forfeited that credit by his evident ignorance of its superiority over existing devices.”
Papin died in 1713. One year prior, an English inventor named Thomas Newcomen introduced the machine now credited as the first practical steam engine. According to Wootton, the timing is suspicious. “Newcomen is not an educated or sophisticated scientist,” he says, “And yet when he comes to build his steam engine, he seems to know exactly what to do, and he knows better what to do than quite highly sophisticated people who ought to understand the principals better. So, the question is, how does Newcomen know what to do?”
Wootton believes Newcomen built his device after referencing Papin’s articles on steam engines, as well as The New Continuation of the Digester of Bones. If that’s true, this twist is more than food for thought for Instant Pot users the next time they make four-minute oatmeal—it also radically rewrites long-accepted history. “If Newcomen gets his thinking about how to tackle a steam engine entirely from Papin,” he says, “Then Papin is the inventor of the steam engine, and Newcomen is a brilliant technician who puts Papin’s thinking into practice.”
I have a minor obsession with carrying a sort-of "explorer’s kit" of items that I might need in a pinch. As a pre-teen, that meant a backpack loaded with, among other things, fantasy maps I’d torn out of my favorite books. As I got older, the items I carried became somewhat more practical, like the multitool and mini-binoculars (why?!) I carried in high school. Even today, I tend to carry an ever-changing collection of just-in-case objects. Do you have your own version of an explorer's pack? We want to hear about the objects you never leave home without.
Since I’m insufferable and like to think that every day holds the potential for adventure, these are the items I currently never leave the house (and certainly never go exploring) without:
Notebook w/ pen (never pencil)
A hand-painted runestone I got in Iceland—for good luck
Adhesive bandages
A set of metal role-playing dice
A lighter
Some things are there for personal reasons, and some are more immediately useful, but I find all of them to be essential to my personal sense of preparedness no matter where I’m heading.
Use the form below to tell us about the essential items you always carry with you on your travels, whether near or far. (And if you happen to have a picture of your items that you’d like to share, please email them to eric@atlasobscura.com, with the subject line, "Explorer's Pack.") We’ll choose our favorite collections and share them in an upcoming article. Remember, it’s dangerous to go alone, and true explorers are never caught unprepared.
From painful spoilers to such trenchant criticism as "P.S. This book blows!"
One of the great truths in life is that used books are awesome. And one of the greatest things about used books are the weird, funny, sad, or just plain unforgettable notes you can often find left behind by previous readers.
We reached out to members of the Atlas Obscura community and asked them to tell us about the most remarkable examples of writing in the margins that they'd ever found. As ever, they didn't disappoint. You sent us pictures of scathing hand-written criticism, a book that held a short record of family deaths, and a particularly creepy-looking example of a secret "government code." Great stuff.
Check out some of our favorite responses below. Maybe they'll inspire you to leave behind notes of your own for some future reader to discover. And if you're one of those people who thinks writing in books is tantamount to graffiti, these probably won't change your mind, but at least they might make you laugh.
Probability and Statistics for Engineers and Scientists by Ronald E. Walpole
About the Book
"While working at The Book Cellar in Louisville, Colorado, years ago I came across this statistics text book, dated 1973."
Memorable Notes
"I kept the book solely for the previous owner's comment on the dedication page, which reads, 'What did she ever do to you?'" — Annie Watts, Lafayette, Colorado
Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
About the Book
"One of the reasons I haunt libraries and secondhand bookstores is finding scribbles from the books' previous owners. I found this decades-old copy of Franny and Zooey in a university library. At the time, I had already read and owned a copy of the book, but this one was special because of all the little notes on the margins."
Memorable Notes
"'Franny - open in her responses to life.' That resonated with me. I was 23, alone (but not lonely), spending an afternoon at the library, and refreshingly devoid of angst. It was one of those afternoons when everything was lucid and hopeful, and I wondered if the person who scribbled in the book felt that way, too." — Hyacinth Tagupa, Philippines
Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare
About the Book
“I was studying abroad my junior year of college at the University of Sussex, and I lived in that library. As an English major, I came across a few funny marginalia (of course) but my favorite was when I was writing a final paper on Shakespeare’s plays. I found this book (the picture doesn’t show the title) because one of the chapters broke down Measure for Measure (and this play was driving me absolutely crazy, I remember struggling to write this final paper) and the aggression and snark of the note just stuck with me. I can’t recall if I used any of the ideas from the text, but the book itself has been overshadowed by the frustrated English student who wrote in it.”
Memorable Notes
“No! It’s not as simple as this, pal!" — Marion Fearing, Portland, Maine
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
Memorable Notes
“June ‘95, Nancy — Seems like there are a lot of books on writing, but the N.Y. Times singled this one out as being exceptionally good. I hope it can be helpful and reassuring when I can’t be. Happy anniversary. I love being married to a bona fide writer, published or otherwise. Hang in there. Love, :-)” — Kristi Cameron, Atlanta, Georgia
Patterns of Culture (1934) by Ruth Benedict
About the Book
“My great aunt Emily read it when she was in college studying to become a teacher.”
Memorable Notes
“On the title page, Aunt Emily wrote (in blue-black fountain pen ink) ‘Now this is the real world.’" — David Hall, Spokane, Washington
Rope Burns by F.X. Toole
About the Book
“Short stories told around boxing.”
Memorable Notes
“On the front page, a dedication from father to a son, ‘Wesley, you’ll always be a champ to me; not because you win, but because you answer the bell. Love, Dad’” — John Paul Iaconianni, Chicago, Illinois
Woods New Illustrated Natural History by John George Wood
Memorable Notes
“1883, tore by J Walter, 1-year old son of Olik and CA Bond, ‘Bless His Damn Little Innocent Fingers,’ Thor did the mischief. Father/86” — Larry, Wisconsin
History of American Literature
About the Book
“My Grandmother's [...] textbook from 1911.”
Memorable Notes
"'Then you mean that as a slur?’ Then a reply, ‘NO’” — Cynthia, Florida
Arcadia by Tom Stoppard
About the Book
“A school copy.”
Memorable Notes
“Someone had underlined all the jokes and written ‘LOL’ in the margins.” — Ian McDougall, Washington D.C.
The Stranger by Albert Camus
About the Book
“Purchased at the long-closed Kaboom Books in the French Quarter in August 2007, the first month of my freshman year at Tulane.”
Memorable Notes
“‘This book to be read in senior year or college for fullest benefit. Allen Klein 11/69.’ I had first read it as a senior in high school, and I have to agree.” — Sara Tobin, New Orleans, Louisiana
Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated by Alison Arngrim
About the Book
“I checked out my local library’s copy of the 2010 Little House on the Prairie tell-all.”
Memorable Notes
“There were no other notes in the book except for one that must have made a thrilling impression on the previous reader. At the end of a description of the effect Michael Landon’s physique had on the ladies, someone shakily underlined the word 'pectorals' with a highlighter.” — Sara Holifield, Nashville, Tennessee
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Memorable Notes
“The note was on the contents page. Next to 'The Greek Interpreter' was written 'difficult and boring.' I think it was a school child's.” — Donatella, South Africa
Classics of the Silent Screen: A Pictorial Treasury by Joe Franklin
About the Book
“Bought it used, as a drawing reference at the Strand.”
Memorable Notes
“To Minette, just a bit of a reminder of our gay old movie making days. Viva La 'Silent' movies. —The Cat Woman.” — Shannon Gately, New York City, New York
Montana Sky by Nora Roberts
About the Book
“I checked out Montana Sky by Nora Roberts from the library about 10 years ago”
Memorable Notes
“Someone had taken the time and energy to black out every single curse word in the book. The erotic passages for some reason were left alone, but the curse words were censored. I always thought it was ironic that someone had that passion about curse words not entering someone's mind, but sex scenes were perfectly fine for everyone to read.” — Stephanie Hebert, Missouri
The Big Fix by Roger Simon
About the Book
“Many years ago I bought a paperback at a second hand bookstore for 20 cents. In it there was a bunch of handwritten notes and an inscription in the back. In the front it said 'Carl Boracks copy.'”
Memorable Notes
“The notes were all related to filming and the inscription mentions the movie but it hadn't been made yet. I always wondered if this guy was the director or something but as I said this was a long time ago (pre-internet). I forgot all about this until I found the book recently and I looked up the movie and it turns out the this Carl Borack was the producer of the movie. ‘If The Big Fix becomes a movie, or should I say when The Big Fix becomes a movie, I want my Montreal contingent to know that the summer of '76 was one of the major reasons why I had the strength and perspective to aid in making a fantasy become a reality. Love, Carl.’” — Farlan Gray, Montreal
A History of the United States (1824)
Memorable Notes
“‘Avaricious Hog’ as a margin note to the amount of money Great Britain was earning from trade. Many underlines and many other margin notes.” — Bob Rugg, Canton, Georgia
Flagellum Daemonum
About the Book
“My parents found it in a curio shop in the 1940s.”
Memorable Notes
“It's a Latin treatise on how to exorcise demons, published in 1615. One of the recipes for expelling bad spirits was apparently sampled and slightly corrected in the margin by a practitioner!” — Chris Gralapp, Northern California
Our Quest for Happiness, Book 4 by Clarence E. Elwell
About the Book
“A 1958 Catholic high school textbook.”
Memorable Notes
“‘Remember big businessmen are !!*!*#+,’ and ‘No! Store in middle of street.’" — Francine Gabreluk, Long Island, New York
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
About the Book
“Used bookshop copy.”
Memorable Notes
“Why is he such a loser? I can relate tho." — Elisabeth, Tucson, Arizona
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
About the Book
“I loaned it to the great grandson of famous American architect Henry Hobson Richardson. When it came back, it was filled with comments written in green ink that were very unflattering of another famous architect from Chicago, John Root. Over the years his family built up a LOT of animus against Root. I think it was professional jealousy but…”
Memorable Notes
“Root was a BS artist; He didn't know squat.” — Paul Warshauer, Sleepy Eye, Minnesota
The Once and Future King by T.H. White
About the Book
“Found at a used bookstore (I don't remember which one as I regularly shop at several).”
Memorable Notes
“Arthur sleeps with Morgause.” — Anne R Naugler, Hollis, New Hampshire
The Mysteries of Art and Nature (1635) by John Bate
Memorable Notes
“Next to the author’s name is a very neat old hand, 'A conceited fop and ye worlds laughingstock.' There were more comments throughout the book but this always stayed with me.” — Doris Straus, New York
American Heritage Dictionary
Memorable Notes
“Next to the entry for ‘chucklehead,’ was my sister's name. We didn't find it until several years after my brother wrote it.” — Ingrid Stuart, Massachusetts
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
About the Book
“Came from my grandmother.”
Memorable Notes
“‘He sponged meals almost everyday at his parents home or at his friend Emerson.’ My grandma wrote this many years ago.” — DB Wheeler, Ohio
Medea by Euripides
About the Book
“I found it at the town landfill’s ‘Take It or Leave It’ collection shed.”
Memorable Notes
“Come eleven after seven baby needs a pair of pants!” — Suzanne Colton, Windsor, Connecticut
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (1909)
Memorable Notes
“Inside the front cover is a primitive genealogy detailing the birth and death dates of members of the Arzberger family dating back to 1856. My favorite part of the writing is that the death of Carl Arzberger is detailed on ‘Jan. 19, 1946, in my arms, 7:15pm, 95 years old 3 mos. + 19 days.’" — Carrie Fisher-Pascual, Torrance, California
Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town by Stephen Leacock
About the Book
“Found in a used bookstore in Toronto, some 35 years ago. I think that I paid about $4 for it.”
Memorable Notes
“A touching series of three inscriptions on the front free endpaper. The first, in a neat confident hand taking four lines across the top half of the page, reads, in pencil: ‘From Jack to Margaret, 1917.’ Then, near the bottom of the page, two lines, also in pencil: ‘Jack now in England. M. Sept. 1918.’ Finally, at the very bottom of the page, a terse addendum, obviously written much later, as it is in ballpoint ink: ‘Killed Oct 11/18, M.’ Note that the final date is exactly one month before the Armistice ending the First World War. Although details are scarce, it may be assumed that "Jack" went to Europe to fight in the conflict, and was killed in action. I've always thought that this brief exchange poignantly illustrates the deeply personal human cost of war.” — Peter Hamiwka, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot
Memorable Notes
“‘To Joanne, None of these cats seems to bear a resemblance to the Princess, but she'll understand. Love, Charlotte.’ The reasons this is a weird note are: (a) I bought this book from betterworldbooks.com, and the notation was in it when it arrived; (b) my name is Jo Anne; (c) I had a cat whom I used to refer to as the Princess; (d) I don't know anyone named Charlotte.” — P. Jo Anne Burgh, Glastonbury, Connecticut
Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter
About the Book
“It was ordered used from someone on Amazon.”
Memorable Notes
“On the title page it says, ‘Warning: Do not read!’ and then page 81 says, ‘P.S. This book blows!’ Up until that point it had been highlighted pretty regularly but the highlighting stopped a couple pages later. Cracked me right up.” — Courtney Feldman, Alexandria, Virginia
The Magician's Own or the Whole Art of Conjuring by George Arnold
Memorable Notes
“U.S. government secret code.” — Rebecca, Madison, Ohio
The Beatles Lyrics by Hunter Davies
About the Book
“On a bookshelf in our old house.”
Memorable Notes
“Handwritten scribbles of 'King Lear' were carefully written next to the lyrics of 'I Am the Walrus' where audio of the play is heard.” — Frannie Cassano, Long Island, New York
In 1905, the Dmitri Donskoi sank off the coast of a South Korean island.
More than century ago, in 1905, a Russian cruiser sank off the coast of a small island east of the Korean peninsula. This was in the midst of the Russo-Japanese War, and the Dmitri Donskoi had been struck by a Japanese attack. The crew, with 60 dead and 120 wounded, made it to Ulleungdo Island, where they were taken prisoner. But before they left the ship, they scuttled it, leaving it at the bottom of the ocean.
Now, after years of searching, a team of divers and shipwreck experts has discovered the wreck. It’s not the first time a group has gone after the Donskoi’s remains, because the ship is said to have boxes of gold on board.
It’s not clear exactly where this information came from. Back in 2000, The Independent reported that “South Korean newspapers have dug up unidentified historical records which, they say, show the Dmitri Donskoi had been carrying a huge cargo of gold bars.”
At that time, another company claimed to have identified the shipwreck. But that group was never able to raise it from the ocean floor and soon went bankrupt.
This new team of divers is convinced that it has identified the Donskoi. During initial explorations, they found a ship that showed damage in the body, but with its decks decently preserved. Most telling, though, was the name printed on the stern in Cyrillic letters.
“You’re not going to believe it. I have a name. It’s in Russian,” says a diver in a video released by the Shinil Group, the company coordinating this expedition. It was the Donskoi.
The team is also working to confirm the boat’s identity by comparing the features they found with the documented features of the cruiser.
Russian experts have been skeptical that the boat is full of gold. The most optimistic version of the story has it that the Donskoi was carrying 5,500 boxes of gold bars and coins, worth $133 billion and intended to pay for the Russian fleet’s expenses. But the experts say it’s unlikely one ship would carry such an incredibly valuable load, especially when it was possible to transport gold by (presumably safer) train routes. In at least one other case, a Russian ship sunk in the area was imagined to hold sunken treasure, but the divers who explored it found no such thing.
The Shinil Group said in a statement it has found iron boxes on board and will be opening them in short time. There are some questions about the finances of the group, too, the BBC reports. But if the wreck does prove to be valuable, there are big plans for next steps. The Russian government will claim 50 percent of the treasure; a portion will go to developing Ulleungdo, already a tourist destination; and the ship will be raised from the bottom floor and preserved in a museum on the island.
Pandanus talk is believed to shoo away spirits and keep the harvest from harm.
A chain of mountains splits the center of Papua New Guinea, crossing east to west for nearly a thousand miles. These highlands are full of peaks and V-shaped valleys, covered in forest and hard to reach—a terrain that has isolated clans for millennia, leading to the country’s famously diverse languages and cultures.
On these mountains grow the pandanus tree, up to 90 feet tall and bearing clusters of knobbly, pineapple-like nuts; eaten raw or cooked, they taste a little like pecans. This dense, high-fat nut is preserved during famine, smashed into pudding, consumed during ceremonies, and connected to the earliest signs of humanity in Papua New Guinea. As far back as the Ice Age, residents were leaving the coasts to trek into the mountains to harvest them. Over time, the harvesting expeditions took on ritual significance, and spurred the development of a hidden form of language.
On pandanus-gathering expeditions, ordinary words cannot be spoken. Instead, people use pandanus talk. It is not a language of its own like Russian or Mandarin, but a style of language used in a special context, or what linguists call a “register.” Across Papua New Guinea, different clans with different languages all switch up their speech when they gather pandanus, lest they risk harming the harvest.
Back when Karl Franklin lived near Mount Giluwe, the second-highest mountain in Papua New Guinea, the surrounding area was believed to be inhabited by wild dogs. Franklin, a now-retired American linguist, first traveled to Papua New Guinea in 1958 to help catalog the local languages. He and his wife lived in a village with the Kewa people, five hours from the nearest government station. Franklin would spend the next few decades creating an alphabet for Kewa (then solely an oral language) and, eventually, compiling a dictionary.
Each year when winter came around, the Kewa went up into Mount Giluwe for weeks at a time to gather pandanus. “One day, somebody told me about this language they used when harvesting the nuts so that the spirits wouldn’t bother them,” says Franklin. The spirit in question was Kita-Meda, keeper of the wild dogs of the mountain. Kita-Meda wore “a long string of mother-of-pearl shells hanging from his neck” and was easily hidden by leaves.
Make no mistake, he was dangerous, capable of ripping people apart—and so certainly capable of derailing a pandanus harvest. Protection was necessary. Kita-Meda might understand Kewa, but he did not understand the pandanus language. Avoid the ordinary words and the spirit, and his unwanted attention, would stay away.
Franklin was already interested in Kewa language taboos—when people died or married, you could no longer use their original names—and this was another intriguing form. He managed to get a helicopter to take him closer to the mountain, normally a day’s walk away, to interview more residents and confirm the existence of this secret language.
The grammar of pandanus language is the same as standard Kewa, according to Franklin, but the vocabulary switches. Repena means both tree and fire in standard Kewa, but in pandanus talk, the same objects are called palaa. Other times, the same word is used, but the meaning changes. Keraa indicates a bush in standard Kewa; up in the mountains, keraa refers to birds, flying foxes, or any type of winged object. Maeya means “crazy” in standard Kewa, then “pig” or “marsupial” in the pandanus language.
“When you go up into the forest, or in any area that’s unknown, you don’t talk a lot,” says Franklin. “It’s a fairly limited register for the Kewa, mostly objects they wanted to refer to, or the phrases most commonly used. It’s functional language for surviving in the mountains.”
Spirits aren’t the concern for the Kalam, another clan that uses pandanus talk. They, too, gather the nut and they, too, prohibit ordinary language from being spoken during the harvesting. This time, the change isn’t to appease Kita-Meda, but to protect the quality of the nuts themselves.
The Kalam language is very different from English, explains Andrew Pawley, a linguist at Australian National University who co-wrote a dictionary of Kalam. Kalam has five vowels, many consonants, and a very limited number of verbs that can be strung together to create more verbs. The word for “massage,” Pawley tells me, is made up of the individual verbs for “rub touch come go-up touch go-down do.” It’s not uncommon to squeeze eight or nine verbs together.
In Kewa, a fairly small group of words change, but almost all words in ordinary Kalam have a pandanus equivalent. “The forest is a wild place,” wrote Pawley in his paper on pandanus language among the Kalam, “and the ordinary names of objects that belong to the civilized world below are antithetical to it and should not be mentioned.” So the logic goes: Because the nuts are not from an ordinary place, exposing them to ordinary language causes harm. Words relating to moisture would make the nuts too watery, so any talk of sweat or water or the body or anything that could possibly be moist are banned. One can’t speak of things sour or bitter or hollow or empty or cold because that might make the nut sour or bitter or hollow, too. The house, the garden, animals, weather, coldness—seemingly all the words of ordinary life are taboo.
In Kalam, the differences between ordinary language and pandanus language seem stark. In ordinary language, “the bird has laid eggs” is “yakt magi ki-p.” In pandanus language, it is “wjblp mdup yok-p.”
“We are eating bananas” is “kañm ñb-sp-un” in ordinary language, but the same phrase becomes “sml ñab g-sp-un” in pandanus language.
What about the phrase “you musn’t use bad language”? In ordinary language: Mnm tmey ma-g-n-mn. In pandanus language: Laj mayab ma-tgom-n-mn.
One other occasion requires pandanus language, one that has nothing to do with nuts and everything to do with a special animal: the cassowary. In Kalam myth, the cassowary is a cousin of the human; even in ordinary language, they are not classified as birds, but inhabit their own category. This doesn’t prevent the animals from being eaten, but the cooking and the consumption must be done in a particular way, using a process that does not allow for the words of the everyday.
The exact origins of pandanus talk are a mystery, but it’s far simpler to understand why it developed.
Pawley says it’s a form of magic, a way of influencing the outcome. “Human beings are superstitious everywhere,” he says. “In the Western world, Christians pray to God for a good harvest or a safe journey, and other cultures have different ways of using magic to control the world.” Franklin adds that the language is also used to mark territory. As long as Mount Giluwe is considered dangerous for those who don’t know the language, outsiders fear to trespass.
It could be a form of art, too, says anthropologist Laurence Goldman, who studied Papua New Guinea’s Huli people in the 1970s. Like the Kewa and Kalam, the Huli have a forest language for gathering pandanus and tricking spirits. But they also have a register used specifically for spells, a register for sacred religious places, and another one for songs. In songs, for example, instead of using the ordinary word for “cloud,” one of six different words is substituted. All these registers are a way for the Huli to channel their creative impulses, according to Goldman. “It’s the commonalities between people that I think is interesting, and we have different registers all over the world for different purposes,” he says. “Think about changing words when we talk to babies, like saying ‘choo choo’ instead of ‘train.’ This all is an example of human beings doing that in different contexts: to communicate, to create culture, to indulge our need for art and play.”
