The President of Asano Taiko carves the interior of a large nagadō-daiko. (Photo: Asano Taiko)

When Katsuji Asano stretches the fresh cowhide over a coffee-colored lacquered taiko drum, he is performing the last crucial steps in the drum-making process his family has been involved in for 400 years. He is also covering up the most beautiful, intricate part of the drum: the hand-carved patterns lining the interior.

Kikkobori is type hexagonal pattern on the interior of some taiko drums. The pattern looks similar to the back of turtle shells. (Photo: Asano Taiko) 

Thirty-three-year-old Katsuji comes from a long line of skilled craftspeople or masters of the taiko drum. His family has been running the Asano Taiko factory in Hakusan, Ishikawa Prefecture, since 1609, making it one of the oldest taiko drum manufacturers in Japan.

The taiko (“fat drum”) was initially used in religious ceremonies, at the Imperial Court, and on the battlefield to intimidate enemies and communicate commands. After World War II, local musicians started to implement the drums in festival music and formed taiko drumming ensembles, known as kumi-daiko. Today’s kumi-daiko performances, in Japan and abroad, are known for their exaggerated arm movements, drumstick twirling, and acrobatic leaps.  

These performances are compelling, but the process of making the drums has a captivating power all its own.

Asano Taiko craftsman, Mr. Minami, must individually carve each hexagon in the kikkobori pattern. (Photo: Asano Taiko)

At Asano Taiko, the popular barrel-shaped nagadō-daiko is made from an entire tree trunk. Asano Taiko craftspeople begin by felling large Japanese zelkova or keyaki elm trees—chosen for the wood's density and hardness which gives taiko its particular tone. (Drums that aren’t made out of keyaki often have a bell-like, sharp echo.) The whole tree is hollowed out and curved into the barrel shape before the wood is aged in a temperature-controlled, low-humidity warehouse. Depending on the type and size, drums need to be aged for two to three years.

After the wood has been aged, exteriors are further shaped and thinned down with handtools before the inner shell is decorated with ornate and precise patterns. These little additions make all the difference, not just aesthetically, but in their effect on the resonance and timbre of the drum.

The rows of the six-sided shape pattern, amijyourokobori, look similar to fish scales. (Photo: Asano Taiko)

“There are different shapes that the craftspeople are skilled at and have a sense of how each of them affects the tone,” Katsuji says. “They pick one of them for the purpose of making the body sound a specific way.” Asano Taiko commonly uses these four patterns: tight zig-zags (yarigataayabori), six-sided turtle back (kikkobori), fish scale (amijyourokobori), and tornado (hadosenjyobori). Some interiors of special odaiko drums are covered in gold to improve resonance and clarity.

The zig-zagged lines of  the yarigataayabori pattern. (Photo: Asano Taiko).

When taiko came to the United States, the earliest kumi-daiko groups who couldn’t afford to import drums from Japan used old drums they found in local Buddhist temples or improvised with crude materials, such as oak wine barrels. White oak can make the drums sound a little too sharp, explains Mark Miyoshi, the owner and principal craftsman at Miyoshi Daiko in Mount Shasta, California. “That's one of the reasons why you need to do the carving on the inside. With the right kind of carving you can kind of negate the high-pitch ringing sound that can come out of the barrel.”

Miyoshi working on the interior of the 40-inch odaiko that took him about six weeks to complete. (Photo: Mark Miyoshi/Miyoshi Daiko)

Miyoshi learned the basic drum-making skills from the San Jose Taiko group, but further refined the wine barrel method into a sophisticated alternative to the original Japanese process. In 1989, he received a fellowship to learn how taiko drums are made in Japan, and found that a lot of his own methods were the same, including the carving patterns in the interior of the drum.

The tornado, spiral pattern, hadosenjyobori. (Photo: Asano Taiko)

The finishing touches are some of the most critical steps in getting the drums to sound correct. Once a coat of lacquer is applied to the exterior, wet cowhide is laid out over the head of the drum and the edges are tied taught with ropes laced around a series of wooden pegs. Determining how tightly and how far to stretch the skin is a decision that could alter the entire tone of the instrument.

Mark Miyoshi sews the hide on a 46-inch okedo head. (Photo: Mark Miyoshi/Miyoshi Daiko) 

In these last steps of the taiko making process, Katsuji at Asano Taiko channels the training and advice passed down from his father. “Imagine the player playing the instrument,” Katsuji says. “Imagine the sticks or the bachi that they’re using and the strike. Ask yourself if that is the right tone, if that’s the right tension for that particular drum.”

Katsuji is now spearheading Asano Taiko U.S. in Torrance, California, which handles taiko repair and sales in the United States as well as taiko drum playing classes. He was officially employed three years ago, but grew up around the factory in Japan observing the making process, getting his hands on taiko drums when he could, and learning from his father who is one of the executives of the company. He hopes to share the vibrant taiko culture to the United States and international players.

A 40-inch odaiko created by craftsman Mark Miyoshi on display at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo: Mark Miyoshi/Miyoshi Daiko)

The distinct sound of the taiko comes from using all natural elements and skilled craftsmanship. Katsuji says it's this sound that resonates naturally with musicians around the world.  

“It’s a very specialized and highly developed art form,” says Miyoshi, who inscribes a dedication or prayer in addition to the unique patterns decorating the interior of the drum. “When it’s played, I feel like the music will carry that dedication out to the rest of the world.”  

Katsuji Asano's interview was translated with the assistance of Kristofer Bergstrom.

India plans to put 22 satellites into space on a single rocket https://t.co/pEIiyHB0PSpic.twitter.com/iKvnbiTpyE

— Bloomberg (@business) June 16, 2016

In four days, India will try to set a new record, by launching 22 satellites into orbit on a single rocket.

The scheduled June 20 launch, from a pad on Sriharikota, on the country's eastern coast, will contain satellites for a multitude of purposes, from navigation to one satellite that will help amateur radio operators, according to Bloomberg. 

It will also be the highest number of satellites for an Indian rocket to date, though Russia holds the all-time record, sending 33 into space on one rocket in 2014. 

The country has broad ambitions for its space program, and is going through with the launch in part because they're feeling pressure from private space entrepreneurs like Elon Musk.

“Unless you keep yourself abreast and look to the future on how to make things better, how to make it more cost-effective, you run the risk of becoming irrelevant,” A.S. Kiran Kumar, the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, told Bloomberg. 

Kumar is in part reacting to the realities of space races these days, with the ISRO competing with moguls like Musk for customers—including many telecommunications companies—who need an increasing number of satellites in orbit. The goal for both Musk and the ISRO is to make the cost of rocket launching as low as possible. 

Musk, for example, has developed a rocket that can launch and land, making it reusable. India isn't there yet, but Kumar acknowledged that they were trying. 

“If you don’t have a capability, you have to build that capability,” Kumar told Bloomberg said. “It is not trying to emulate, but you also have to be relevant.”

A little green alien on Tobias Lindgren's desk at the Archives for the Unexplained. (All Photos: Courtesy Clas Svahn/Archives for the Unexplained)

The industrial Swedish town of Norrköping, nestled along an inlet of the Baltic Sea, was once known for its booming textile industry. Now, decades after outsourcing muffled the city’s industrial buzz, Norrköping is known primarily as a quiet student town, dotted with repurposed factories and the snaking waterways that interweave them.

In such surroundings, it seems strange to find the world’s largest open UFO archive. Yet there it is, just a five-minute tram ride from the city center.

The Archives for the Unexplained, formerly known as The UFO Archives, are scattered throughout 10 storage facilities in the housing quarters of Ljura, a neighborhood in the city's south. These facilities are located in the cellars of colorful, structural-functionalist apartment complexes.

As co-founder and administrative manager Anders Liljegren gives me a tour of the first storage unit, we cross paths with several young students exiting the apartment’s double-doors. Do they realize that century-old collections dedicated to the obscure and unexplained reside just beneath their feet? “Most likely not,” Liljegren laughs when I ask him. “They probably think we’re doing a really bad job of hiding a drug operation or something when we bring huge boxes to the units.”

Co-founder and administrative manager Anders Liljegren in the Archives.

Though the Archives for the Unexplained now boasts over 20,000 collections of animalistic phenomena from all around the world, it had very humble, local beginnings. It all started in 1973 when Anders and his two friends Hakan Blomqvist and Kjell Jonsson founded the Work Group for Ufology, a predecessor to the UFO Archives. Curious about unexplainable objects in the sky, the then 23-year-old and his colleagues ran a library out of their student apartments, hoping to create a dialogue about UFOs in Scandinavia. Over time the library expanded and the group officially became known as the Archives for UFO Research in January of 1980.

Anders Liljegren and Håkan Blomqvist at a press conference. 

Despite assumptions that the organization is comprised of staunch believers in all things extraterrestrial, Liljegren and his coworkers prefer to take a more academic approach to their archival project. “We’ve had some bad experiences with fanatics," he says. “It is best to have people working here who are more sociologically interested.” Liljegren has been personally involved in a wide array of research regarding Scandinavian “close encounters” and was one of the first to gain access to theretofore-secret government documents detailing the Swedish “ghost fliers” and “ghost rockets” that caused a commotion in the 1930s and 1940s.

At work in the archives.

From ancient alien theories to more contemporary hypotheses, the archive in Ljura seems to have it all. Liljegren shows me the archives’ most recent acquisition, donated by the Spanish group Centro de Estudios Interplanetarios (CEI). It is, as is written on the group’s homepage, “one of the finest and rich report files anywhere in the world with 120 large black file folders and another 30 files of cross-indexes by region.”

While I am in awe over the wealth of material from Spain, I am more taken by an old book from the USSR. As UFO research was then a banned topic, books on the subject were painstakingly put together by hand, complete with carefully composed drawings of UFO sightings. Liljegren points to a child-like drawing of an object hovering above a house. “These sightings were actually just Russia’s missile tests, but nobody knew that then. They had no idea.”

A flying saucer artifact in the archives.

For years Liljegren and the board of the UFO Archives struggled to keep the archives streamlined to exclusively UFO-related material but as of April 2013, the organization has broadened its scope. “We get calls from random benefactors every once in a while,” he says. Somebody will call and say that they have their father’s UFO collection, for instance, and need a place to keep it safe.”

Oftentimes people offer to donate money with a caveat. “We’ll have somebody call in and offer a certain sum if we include ‘x’ and ‘y’ in the archives,” says Liljegren. Now officially known as the Archives for the Unexplained, the organization embraces material regarding anything that can be called into question, from the Loch Ness Monster, to fairies, to parapsychology, and more. They have struggled to find a place to consolidate their extensive collections and are still in search of a fitting locale. “We’ll probably stay in Norrköping,” he says, “there’s just too much to transport.”

(All photos by Anna Brones)

A version of this story was originally published in Makeshift magazine.

Before the era of urban sprawl, the outskirts of Paris were ripe with orchards. Hundreds of hectares produced kilos of fruits to feed the masses inside the French capital. Yet even as concrete and asphalt expand ever outward, plowing over centuries-old fields with new homes and roads, the spirit of homegrown farming is still embedded in the soil of the Parisian suburbs.

The suburb of Montreuil, just east of Paris, today houses some 100,000 people. But in the 18th to 20th centuries, it served as a hub of agricultural activity. At its high point, this area produced upwards of 15 million fruits a year, thanks largely to the murs à pêches, or ‘peach walls’. Established in the 17th century, this clever network — some 500 hectares of walls — helped protect the peach trees from the cold.

The north-south orientation of the walls and the ability of limestone to trap the sun’s heat provided a few extra degrees of warmth for the fruits, allowing them to flourish farther north than their usual habitat.

Amid urban sprawl and encroaching concrete, homegrown farming remains embedded in the Parisian soil.

The peaches of Montreuil became famous. They attracted royalty, earned a horticulturalist a prestigious Legion d’Honneur, and spurred an agricultural industry. Yet eventually, urban sprawl engulfed the walls.

“Today we are no longer in an [industrial] agricultural production,” says Pascal Mage, the president of the organization Murs à Pêches. He tends to the remaining 35 hectares of peach walls. Some are still home to peach trees, but others have been turned into gardens and are maintained by a variety of organizations devoted to the growth of urban agriculture. The result is a network of small gardens, all open to the public. “It’s a poetic place,” Pascal says.It’s Sunday, and despite the on-and-off downpour, members of the organization arrive to work on the orchards. One of the volunteers walks up with a peach in one hand and a knife in the other. She slices the fruit and passes pieces around.

Beyond the orchards that Murs à Pêches maintains, a maze of community gardens used for food production and education surround the plots made by the old peach walls. A medieval garden, called Jardin de la Lune, grows herbs and greens that would’ve appeared many centuries ago. Students from a nearby horticultural high school use the gardens for hands-on training — a reminder of more productive times, and an inspiration for the future.

As the world’s population continues to trend toward the urban, people move farther away from where food is grown. Paris, perhaps due to its history of mixing urban living with rural growing, seems to be ahead of the curve on this. Residents are keen to both draw on past experiences while innovating toward new ideas.

About a half-hour drive east of Montreuil’s farms, residents in the densely populated Ile-de-France region are pursuing gardens with a bit more buzz. Over 600 beehives dot the city — some even on the rooftop of the famous Opera Garnier — while vineyards hang in well-known neighborhoods such as Montmartre and Belleville, and near the Gare du Lyon train station in Bercy. Members of around 70 community gardens grow their own food, while rooftop gardens supply fashionable, top-tier restaurants. The city recently launched a gardening permit system for the outskirts of Paris, which allows people who want to keep the tradition of food production to select and maintain their own space.

Arable land is, of course, in limited supply in the city’s tightly packed suburban zone. This has forced harvest-minded Parisian entrepreneurs to find creative ways to keep feeding the local population, with the most viable option being atop the endless buildings.

Parisian suburbanites are reviving the region’s agricultural past with modern innovative twists.

Across the city, a flurry of rooftop gardening has taken hold in the last decade. Topage, a startup, is driving the movement. Its work includes Le Pullman Eiffel Tower restaurant garden, Yannick Alleno’s garden for the restaurant Terroir Parisien, and the research-focused 600-square-meter rooftop garden at AgroTech Paris. DIY and citizen-led projects have also garnered the attention of the city’s formal leadership. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has promised that within the next five years, 100 hectares of rooftops and walls will be turned into productive green zones.

Beyond maximizing space, rooftop agriculture offers other desirable gains. After decades of industrialization, the ground beneath Paris is saturated with heavy metals. The abundance of lead, cadmium, and zinc lodged in the earth is one of the reasons the Murs à Pêches doesn’t envision developing into a larger, full-scale agricultural production.

Production capacity of artisanal gardens remains small. Like at Murs à Pêches, many of the cooperative gardens in Paris usually produce just enough food to feed those who grow it. That’s far short of the 2 million people within the Paris city limits, or the more than 12 million people in the urban sprawl. While it’s hard to imagine that urban gardens could fully sustain the population, the region is slowly slimming down imported calories as independent producers continue to grow.

At the popular bar La Recyclerie, near Sacré-Cœur, visitors can find eggs from the chickens at their onsite urban farm. Veni Verdi, a five-year-old urban garden organization, sells the produce from one of its rooftop plots at a local cafe in Paris’ 20th arrondissement. The group’s latest initiative involves installing a rooftop garden on the ERDF (France’s electricity company) building, a stone’s throw from the area once known for its food markets, Les Halles.

Other groups are pushing to label locally grown food — a marketing ploy, perhaps, but also further incentive for Parisians to find new ways to produce homegrown eats. Doing so greatly ups the travel efficiency of the food consumed (and thus drops the ecological footprint). Local production also spurs community growth. “The residents invest in the space,” says Pascal, speaking of the Murs à Pêches members. This investment brings them food, but it’s also an accessible alternative to the rhythm of a modern metropolis.

Back in the Murs à Pêches, Pascal marvels at the tranquil, productive space within the city. “It’s the countryside,” he says, walking through the flourishing gardens and orchards, looking across the field. “It’s a change of scenery.

An illustration of Buffalo Bill. (All images by the D'Aulaires, and courtesy of Rea Berg and Beautiful Feet Books. Original D'Aulaire art, sketches, and lithograph stones are held by the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at Yale University.)

My favorite book, at one moment in my childhood, was the D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths, a big book, with a cover in the bright colors of the sun and lush illustrations inside. Uranus left stars in Gaea’s eyes as they fell in love, Iris ran down a rainbow, trailing her “gown of iridescent drops,” and the gods of Olympus sat arrayed on their thrones, Artemis with her bow, Demeter with Persephone on her lap, Zeus with lightning bolts in hand.

Like so many kids, I thought they were magic.

First published in 1962, the Book of Greek Myths is one of the most popular children’s books ever—it’s still a best-seller. It is the most famous of the books by the D’Aulaires, a husband and wife team of European artists who immigrated to America in the 1920s. But it’s also one of their last.

Earlier in their career as creators of children’s books, the D’Aulaires wrote about a different set of myths—of the American variety. Most of their first books were set in Scandinavia, where Ingri D’Aulaire grew up, but soon they moved their focus across the Atlantic, to their new home. In 1936, they wrote a biography of George Washington and in 1939 one of Abraham Lincoln, for which they won the Caldecott Medal. They would write about Pocahontas, Benjamin Franklin, Buffalo Bill, and Christopher Columbus, all before they wrote anything about Greek myths.

These books of American myths, though, have largely been forgotten—even the Caldecott-winning Lincoln biography. I wondered: Why had they fallen out of circulation? Did they have any of the magic of the D’Aulaires’ greek myths?

A scene from Abraham Lincoln, showing the influence of Matisse.

The story of Ingri and Edgar Parin D’Aulaire has its own mythic quality to it. Ingri was born in Norway, and Edgar in Germany, where Ingri came to study art. They were married in her country, moved to Paris and started dreaming of America. When Edgar was in a trolley accident, he used the insurance money to sail across the Atlantic, alone, to start a new life. After Ingri joined him, they met a librarian at the New York Public Library who planted the idea of their future: they should use their artistic talents to make books for children.

The stone lithography they used for their illustration was a heavy lift. Each page was printed from multiple stones, which could weigh anywhere from 50 to 200 pounds each. The images on each would layer over one another to create the final, rich image. Edgar Parin had studied under Matisse, and their work was influenced by Impressionism. Look closely at the illustrations, and they’re made of tiny strokes of carefully juxtaposed color.

Each illustration was made from multiple stones like this one.

Their research process was possibly even more arduous. They would spend hundreds of hours reading, traveling and sketching before they even started writing or creating their illustrations. When they wrote about Christopher Columbus, they traveled through Italy, Spain and Portugal to see the places he had lived and toured the Caribbean islands he landed on when he crossed the ocean. While researching Lincoln, they sketched dozens of the faces they found in old photographs at the Springfield library and used them to fill in the crowds of people in their drawings.

This attention to detail, combined with their sense of scope, is as important to their books as their illustrations.

The D'Aulaires sketched extensively before beginning illustrations.

This is how their American myths begin.

“Virginia was once a wilderness,” the D’Aulaires write. “Wild beasts lived there, and swift Indians ran through grass and swamps.” Within two paragraphs, hundreds of years have passed. A man named John Washington arrives from England, builds a farm near a pile of oyster shells (created by the people Europeans forced out), and there “his grandson’s son, George Washington” appears in the world.

Columbus’ story gets treated even more like a fairytale. “There once was a boy/who loved the salty sea,” it begins.

Like any mythological hero, the D’Aulaires’ George Washington has powers beyond those of ordinary men. He’s stronger than other boys and rides his horse more skillfully. He can hurl a rock across the width of the river. He’s shot, but unharmed. Lincoln is also demigod-like, when they tell of how he “wrestled with the strongest and toughest of them all, and threw them to the ground.”

But at the same time, their characters comes across as a real people. There’s no cherry tree story in George Washington; Columbus gets petty and angry. Lincoln continues to sit on the floor to read his books, even after Mary Todd tell him those are wilderness manners, not city manners. As much as the D’Aulaires are telling stories about these almost unreal men, the founding fathers also seem more fully drawn than usual. There are details in these stories that, as many times as I've been told the stories of these men, I'd never heard before.

The cover of Abraham Lincoln.

Today, these books are printed by Beautiful Feet Books, a boutique publisher in California. Rea Berg, its founder, discovered the D’Aulaires’ American books when she was planning a homeschooling curriculum, and started printing them when she found there was demand for Leif the Lucky, another D’Aulaire book that had gone out of print.

Big publishers, she says, “are not interested in books that they can only sell a few thousand copies a year of.” But with that first book, “people were just so delighted to see it brought back into print." Beautiful Feet now publishs all six of the American books and recently released a new edition of Abraham Lincoln.

The new edition came with two challenges. The D’Aulaires created these books in the 1930s and ‘40s, and to some extent, their books reflect the mindset of the time. They celebrate Columbus without acknowledging the problems with his colonial drive. The fields of George Washington’s home have slaves working them, and slave children peek through plantation house windows. A member of the Black Hawk tribe cowers behind Lincoln as the future president defends him; freed slaves bend a knee to him after the war is over. The books don’t glamorize colonialism or slavery, but they don’t confront them, either. In the new edition, Beautiful Feet Books made small changes to correct some of the most patronizing portrayals of non-white people.

With Lincoln, the publishers also needed to restore the original art. In the 1950s, the D’Aulaires’ publisher pushed them to put aside lithography and create cheaper, acetate editions of their books. In those acetate versions, the colors changed. “The D’Aulaires had painted this beautiful forest of trees in the moonlight,” says Berg. “They’re these lovely dusky grayish colors. In the revised editions, the trunks of the trees are purple.” The white stripe of a skunk turns green; a fawn gets a greenish cast as well.

For the new edition, Beautiful Feet Books captured the original colors from older editions held at the Beinecke Rare Books library. You can see the difference:

Original art on the left; art from the 1957 version of Abraham Lincoln on the right.

“They chose stone lithography because it gave children a sense of what true art was,” Berg says.

After reading the American books, I looked again at the D’Aulaires’ Greek myths. All the same elements are there: the scope, the detail, the illustrations. In the American myths, my favorite illustrations are the ones that are the dreamiest, the most unreal—Columbus in a Caribbean rainforest, surrounded by lizards, birds and giant flowers, a boyish Washington sitting before a fireplace whose tiles have shadowy images of whales and bears, Lincoln and his sister holding hands in the forest like two lost fairy tale children. In the Greek myths, all these urges are unbound by history and its problems. Plus, the D’Aulaires had practice.

Thomas Roma, From Sunset Park, 1992, Brooklyn, NY. (Photo: © Thomas Roma, Courtesy of the Steven Kasher Gallery)

Juliana Beasley, Bernadette and Bryan, 2008, photographed at Rockaway Beach. (Photo: Courtesy of Juliana Beasley)

Greg Miller, Untitled, From the Series Asser Levy Pool, 2010. (Photo: Courtesy of Greg Miller)

Wayne Lawrence, Kye, Kaiya, and Kamren, 2009, photographed at Orchard Beach. (Photo: Courtesy of Wayne Lawrence)

Christine Osinski, Boy Flexing, Staten Island, 1983-84, photographed at South Beach Staten Island. (Photo: Courtesy of Christine Osinski)

Lauren Welles, Hanging Out, Coney Island, 2013. (Photo: Courtesy of Lauren Welles)

Rona Chang, Concrete Bathers, Astoria, NY, 2011, photographed at Astoria Pool. (Photo: Courtesy of Rona Chang)

Michael Kirby Smith, Poolside, 2013, photographed at Astoria Pool. (Photo: Courtesy of Michael Kirby Smith)

Tobias Hutzler, Coney Island, New York, 2014. (Photo: Courtesy of Tobias Hutzler)

Fans at the World Series in 1916. A quarter century earlier, Ella Black opened doors for baseball-loving women everywhere. (Photo: Library of Congress/LC-DIG-ggbain-22957)

On May 21, 1890, as she did on most spring days, Ella Black put on a hat, grabbed her press credentials, and headed out to the ballpark to do her job. That day, she was in New York, ready to watch the Pittsburgh Alleghenys face off against the Brooklyn Bridegrooms at Washington Park. When she reached the gate, she opened her pocketbook, pulled out her press card, and handed it to the ticket-taker.

The surprised man took her identification. He looked at her, read the name more closely, and then looked up again. "Well, well," he said. "I've heard of you often, but I always thought you were a man. But you really are a woman!"

Ella Black got that a lot. As the world's first nationally circulated female baseball writer, she was privy to plenty of double takes, obstacles, and confused men. Despite this, throughout 1890, she penned dozens of articles for Sporting Life, proving that a self-described "petticoated enthusiast" could chase stories and swap stats with the best of them. She covered bullpen politics, gave a voice to female fan culture, and sparred with male readers—and then, as suddenly a home run over the back fence, she disappeared. A century later, baseball historians are still trying to figure out exactly who she was.

The Brooklyn Bridegrooms in 1889, a year before Black saw them play. (Photo: WikiCommons/Public Domain)

In 1890, American baseball was going through a bit of an identity crisis. Over the 14 years of its existence, the National League had slowly consolidated much of the teams' financial and decision-making power away from the athletes. Players couldn't negotiate their own contacts, and they could be sold to another team on a dime, or suffer pay cuts for carousing after games. Dissatisfied with this, a group of ballplayers decided to split off into their own, unionized league, known as the Players' League. Suddenly, many cities had two different teams, battling it out on the field and behind the scenes. Fans had to choose sides: Cleveland Spiders or Cleveland Infants? Boston Beaneaters or Boston Reds?

Black, who was from Pittsburgh, preferred the local Players' League team, the Burghers, to the National League's Alleghenys. As a member of a small women's baseball fanclub, the Young Ladies of the Diamond, she saw the various ways each team drew in female fans, and watched how the women in turn influenced each team's financial and competitive success.

She offered this insight up to Sporting Life in the form of a letter, published on March 5th, 1890, under the heading "A WOMAN'S VIEW." "A Novelty in Base Ball Literature—The Base Ball Situation Considered and Commented Upon From A Female Standpoint," the subhead explained further, before giving Black ten good column inches.

The front page of The Sporting Life the day of Black's first publication. (Screenshot: LA84 Foundation/Public Domain)

Despite the enthusiasm of the Young Ladies of the Diamond, women baseball fans were uncommon—the sport, with its spitting and roughhousing and swearing at umps, was considered unfit for ladies. Women writers were also rare, and those who showed up in newspapers were often relegated to the "women's pages," dedicated to society balls, food, and fashion.

"As a woman writing journalism and also as a woman writing baseball, Black was doubly out of bounds," says Scott Peterson, the author of Reporting Baseball's Sensational Season of 1890. "At first, I think the editor of the Sporting Life published her letter as something of a lark."

But Black wasn't in it for a lark at all. "When she kept sending letters, and these reports had interesting and insightful information in them, they kept publishing them," says Peterson. Eventually, the paper's editor sent her press credentials—not that they were much use. Many of the baseball news hubs—locker rooms, bullpens, taverns—were, either legally or socially, essentially off-limits to Black. Even that Brooklyn ticket-taker wouldn't let her enter without first checking with a higher-up.

"I did not care to indulge in so much red tape," Black wrote. "I put an end to the conference by purchasing a ticket and feeling very independent as I walked in and took my seat."

Jack Glasscock, notorious blackguard, during his Indianapolis Hoosier days. (Image: Library of Congress/LC-DIG-bbc-0004f)

This lack of access inspired great creativity. Black eavesdropped on officials on trolley cars and outside taverns (they spoke more freely around her, she said, because she was "only a woman"). She spied on new recruits with opera glasses. She developed her own unique beat, intertwining female fan culture with the two leagues' growing rivalry. She revealed female fan favorites—women loved "fine-looking and shapely" catcher Fred Carroll, she wrote, and clapped so hard for first baseman Jake Beckley that the buttons came flying off their gloves.

On the other end of the spectrum, her whole club would be boycotting games featuring New York shortstop Jack Glasscock, she reported, because he tended to "swear and act like a blackguard." During the coverage of the labor dispute, Black was one of the more objective voices, says Peterson: "She would be critical of both leagues if she thought they deserved the criticism."

She also had a more overarching focus: she wanted to prove women could write about baseball. When nonbelievers pitched doubts at her, she swung true. "Mr. Editor, are you right sure that "Ella Black" is not the nom de plume of some gentleman correspondent?" wrote Joe Pritchard, a baseball reporter from St. Louis. "The letters are too newsy for a lady to compose." Black fired back: "I only wish that I had the privileges of a man, then I would give the St. Louisian an idea of how much superior to some men a woman could be."

When others said it was suspicious that the Pittsburgh players didn't know her, she reminded them of her situation. "Women writers would be a strange sight lounging around hotels and cigar stores," she replied. "So long as I can write base ball and not make myself conspicuous, all right; when cannot do so I shall stop writing." Eventually, people stopped questioning her identity and just nitpicked her reporting—a compliment, in its own way.

A woman named Elsie Tydings, first in line for World Series tickets in 1924. By that time, women were a larger presence in the stands. (Photo: Library of Congress/LC-USZ62-98702)
Black's last column ran on November 22, 1890; in it, she discusses the impending dissolution of the Players' League, deftly shuts down another critic ("I am not a prophetess"), and wonders who will play for Pittsburgh that coming year. After that, she essentially disappeared. Several historians, including Peterson, have tried to puzzle out who she was, where she came from, and where she went next, but all have come up short. Even "Ella Black" was likely a pseudonym. 

"We know for sure that she was living in Pittsburgh in 1890," says Foster, "But that's all. She is a figure of mystery."

Wherever Black went, she propped the door open on her way out. People wrote into The Sporting Life asking after her, and saying she "numbered among the brilliants." By the 1920s, Foster says, there were over 30 female sportswriters in America. Although numbers have gone up since then, we still have a long way to go—a recent Associated Press report put the proportion of female sportswriters in major newsrooms at around 15 percent, and many face online harassment that Black couldn't have even dreamed of.

Still, someone has to be the first—first to step over the red tape, first to answer to doubters, and to overhear news tips on trolley cars from people who say she's 'only a woman.' And that was Ella Black—whoever she was.

Daaaaaaaawwwww... (Photo: Taras Young/CC BY-SA 4.0)

Hard bronze statues don't often inspire warm, cuddly feelings, but some of them are just so damn cute, you can't help but want to give them a hug. Whether it's a naughty little pup lifting his leg on a bollard, or a monument to a war hero bear with a doofy grin, all across the world you can find timeless metal tributes to all sorts of adorable beasts.  Check out 10 of the world's most heartwarming bronze creatures below! 

1. Zinneke Pis

Ville de Bruxelles, Belgium

Bad dog. (Photo: Arcadiuš/CC BY 2.0)

Belgium's Manneken Pis, that cherubic little boy taking a pee that can be found replicated on fountains across the world, is one of the most famous statues of all time, but did you know that he has dog? And he's peeing too. Located in a public Belgium square, the bronze dog was created as tongue-in-cheek homage to the more famous pis statue. Even though he's peeing, the little pup is such a cute little scrapper, it's hard to be too mad him.

(Photo: Rina Seveega/CC BY-SA 2.0)

(Photo: James Cridland/CC BY 2.0)

2. Brown Dog Statue

London, England

A lightning rod for vivisection riots. (Photo: Tagishsimon/CC BY-SA 4.0)

Look at this little guy! The tilted head, the slight "who, me?" look. Adorable. However London's Brown Dog Statue is a replacement for a previous monument that was once at the center over a controversial fight over vivisection. In 1903, a physiology professor was accused of performing a cruel vivisection on a living brown terrier, sparking a very public fight over the practice.

The anti-vivisectionists created a brown dog monument in honor of the dog, but the statue caused riots between outraged medical students and animal rights activists, and the city was forced to remove the statue in 1910. This new statue was put in place in 1985, serving as a reminder of the Brown Dog riots. Who could hurt that little face, even for science?  

(Photo: Mike T/CC BY-ND 2.0)

(Photo: Tagishsimon/CC BY-SA 4.0)

(Photo: Paul Farmer/CC BY-SA 2.0)

3. King Puck

Killorglin, Ireland

This goat will make YOU want to scream. (Photo: IrishFireside/CC BY-SA 2.0)

All hail King Puck, Lord Goat of Killorglin! This smiley goat is the symbol of the yearly Puck Fair festival which sees the locals of Killorglin bring a goat down from the hills and crown it king of the town for a few days. The fair is thought to be the oldest surviving festival in the country, and is still quite the party. The real goat that is chosen each year probably isn't as happy looking as this permanent monument to the festivities, but it it half as cute as this statue, it's no wonder it is crowned king.  

(Photo: Itub/CC BY-SA 3.0)

(Photo: Neil and Kathy Carey/CC BY-SA 2.0)

(Photo: David (Davo) Smith/CC BY-SA 2.0)

4. Winnipeg the Bear Statue

Winnipeg, Canada

Pooh bear? (Photo: Cherrysweetdeal/CC BY 2.0)

This Canadian statue might not look familiar, but the little bear that is memorialized by this statue is more famous than you think since he was the inspiration for Winnie the Pooh. Winnipeg the bear was a cub that was adopted by a World War I regiment of soldiers, who raised the baby bear as their official mascot. The bear eventually ended up in a London zoo where A.A. Milne's son became infatuated with the animal, eventually inspiring the Winnie the Pooh we all know today. This monument depicts the bear cub standing up and holding hands with her former owner which is just the cutest thing. She thinks she's people.   

(Photo: Michael Spivak/CC BY-SA 3.0)

5. Soldier Bear Statue

Edinburgh, Scotland

That's a nice bear. (Photo: M J Richardson/CC BY-SA 2.0)

Apparently adopting bear cubs was once a popular pastime for bored soldiers, as this statue remembers a bear named Wojtek that was taken in by a regiment during World War II. The bear actually stayed with the troop long enough become fully grown, by which time they had taught it to salute, carry supplies, and eat cigarettes. Although he was adopted by a Polish regiment, he ended the war in Scotland, which is where his monument stands today. Usually a full grown bear might be a scarier beast, but the look on this bear's face is too "aw shucks" to be menacing.

(Photo: M J Richardson/CC BY-SA 2.0)

(Photo: M J Richardson/CC BY-SA 2.0)

6. Hamish McHamish Statue

Saint Andrews, Scotland

Foerever stray. (Photo: Iain Cameron/CC BY 2.0)

In general, stray cats are a sad sight, but sometimes they are so cute they win the hearts and minds of the locals. Such is the story of Hamish McHamish, a fluffy little stray who became the unofficial mascot of St. Andrews, Scotland. The cat was allowed in local businesses and fed and taken care of by the citizens like it was a civic duty. The local newspaper started a campaign to erect the statue of Hamish that now stands in the town so that they will never again be without their beloved kitty.

(Photo: Iain Cameron/CC BY 2.0)

7. Mrs. Chippy Monument

Wellington, New Zealand

Cat. Explorer. Lazy. (Photo: sandwichgirl/Used With Permission)

Look at this regal feline! In life Mrs. Chippy was the ship cat aboard the famous Shackleton expedition, brought down to Antarctica by the crew carpenter. Mrs. Chippy made to the frozen land, but suffered a sad fate when the ship became stuck in pack ice. As matters became more desperate for the ship's human crew, the cat had to be shot along with the sled dogs. But now, a bronze Chippy can be found lounging on the carpenter's grave in New Zealand. 

(Photo: Nigel Cross/Public Domain)

8. Hodge The Cat

London, England

This cat has a bigger vocabulary than you. (Photo: George Rex/CC BY-SA 2.0)

Perched on a bronze dictionary, Hodge the cat is the perfect mix of feline superiority and literary pedigree. The real Hodge belonged to famous dictionary author (and jerk) Samuel Johnson, who was infatuated with his cat companion. Johnson is said to have fed the cat oysters whenever he could, and generally treated his pet better than some of his servants. Now Hodge is forever cast in a contented position, right next to some oysters. The cat might be spoiled, but you can't deny that it's a pretty little kitty.

(Photo: Elliot Brown/CC BY 2.0)

(Photo: Elliot Brown/CC BY 2.0)

(Photo: Elliot Brown/CC BY 2.0)

9. Bosco the Dog Mayor

Sunol, California

Who's a good mayor? (Photo: AndrewKeenanRichardson/CC0 1.0)

This Sunol, California monument is dedicated to a regal pup named Bosco who may be the only dog to ever serve as mayor of a human town. Full name, Bosco Ramos, the dog was a black lab belonging to a local family who was nominated for mayor of the town as a joke, but went on to beat out two actual candidates, winning him the honor of being honorary mayor from 1981-1995. His adorable memorial statue portrays the dog as wearing a bandanna that perfectly accents his perfect dog face. Whoever decided to start putting bandannas on dogs deserves a monument of their own. 

(Photo: Ferrous Büller/CC BY-SA 2.0)

(Photo: Pedro Xing/CC0 1.0)

10. Jim the Wonder Dog

Marshall, Missouri

Could he predict how cute his statue would be? (Photo: Wendy Berry/CC BY 2.0)

Jim the Wonder Dog was one hell of a pet. When he was alive, the dog's owner claimed that Jim could not only understand English, but also perform remarkable acts of psychic prediction including guessing the sex of unborn children as well as the Kentucky Derby. Poor Jim died in 1937, but an entire memorial garden was erected in 1999 on the site where his former owner's hotel once stood. The centerpiece of the garden is a statue of Jim himself, standing alert and ready to warm hearts and predict horse races. 

(Photo: Americasroof/CC BY-SA 3.0)

(Photo: eyeoh4/CC BY 2.0)

Van Gogh's study of hands. (Image: Vincent Van Gogh/Public domain)

A publisher in Paris has announced that it will publish a set of Vincent Van Gogh’s sketches, only recently discovered and never before released to the public.

The sketches will be published in November, under the title The Fog of Arles, according to Seuil, the publisher. A Seuil representative told AFP that the sketches are “stunning, dazzling.”

Beyond that, the details of where the sketches came from or how they were found are…sketchy. From AFP:

“No further information will be divulged until the world press conference to be held in Paris in mid-November 2016 on the eve of the book’s arrival in bookstores in the various countries,” Seuil said in a statement.

Expectations, raised. Now that they've cast these drawings in a shroud of mystery and hype, those sketches better be pretty amazing. 

Every day, we highlight one newly found object, curiosity or wonder. Discover something amazing? Tell us about it! Send your finds to sarah.laskow@atlasobscura.com. 

My #mission to find this #plague#doctor that been knocking about round #chester and find out #wtf it is hah #human? pic.twitter.com/4NmDcmfix4

— Chanelle Star (@ChanelleStar86) June 16, 2016

The English city of Chester is known for it’s unique medieval architecture, but recently it seems to be home to another medieval relic in the form of a creepy plague doctor that has been spotted roaming the streets at night.

As reported in the Chester Chronicle, social media has been buzzing with sightings of a mysterious cloaked figure wearing the iconic beaked mask and brimmed hat of a medieval plague doctor. No information other than blurry pics posted to social media has arisen about the figure, leading most people in Chester simply scratching their heads.

Historically, plague doctors were traveling physicians who went from place to place, treating the epidemics that would infect entire towns and cities. They came to be associated with the eerie beak mask that many of them wore to keep themselves from catching the very sicknesses they were treating. The masks would be filled with aromatic items that, according to the belief of the time, kept the doctors from inhaling infectious vapors.

Today the image of the plague doctor simply looks like something out of a horror movie. While the spooky figure roaming the streets of Chester and haunting the historic, stacked “Rows” has yet to be identified, their silent, scary enigma schtick is reminiscent of similar stunts where people dressed as sinister clowns. The mini-trend of creepy clown lurkers popped up in cities from California to Northampton around 2015, with a number of different sightings of silent clowns aimlessly wandering the streets.

A sort of ambient prank by way of a horror movie, the Chester plague doctor seems to be a new twist on this fad. Either that, or there is really the ghost of a damn plague doctor roaming the streets.

There's no home for you here. (Photo: Tom Coppen/CC BY 2.0)

Earlier this month, the Gates Foundation and Heifer International announced a new antipoverty initiative. The campaign, which they're calling "Coop Dreams," would donate 100,000 chickens to a variety of developing nations, including Bolivia.

There's just one problem—Bolivia doesn't want them. "I find it rude," said Cesar Cocarico, Bolivia's Rural Development Minister, according to Agence France-Presse. "We don't depend on chickens. We've advanced. Our people have dignity and they know how to work."

Gates explained the initiative in a blog post titled 'Why I Would Raise Chickens.' "If I were in their shoes, that's what I would do—I would raise chickens," he wrote, pointing out that they're a good starter investment. "Our foundation is betting on chickens," he summed up.

As the Verge points out, Bolivia already produces 197 million chickens every year. Programs like Coop Dreams "always see us as miserable Third World countries," Cocarico summed up in turn. "That point of view deserves a general protest by the people."

Every day, we track down a fleeting wonder—something amazing that's only happening right now. Have a tip for us? Tell us about it! Send your temporary miracles to cara@atlasobscura.com.

Street food vendors around the world are artisans in their own right, becoming masters of the dish that they prepare so many times a day. Often, this means that they pick up technical skills along the way that are completely astonishing, not to mention mesmerizing to watch.

The above footage shows a vendor in China flipping dough that's ready to enter the oven. Though he's technically impeccable, there's no denying that this spectacle is more art than science.

Every day we track down a Video Wonder: an audiovisual offering that delights, inspires, and entertains. Have you encountered a video we should feature? Email ella@atlasobscura.com.

(Photo: Tripp/CC BY 2.0)

This week, Pennsylvania enacted its biggest liquor law reform since Prohibition, which will soon enable its residents to, among other things, get wine directly shipped to their homes from wineries out of state. 

Pennyslvania's laws on booze had been, up until recently, among the country's most restrictive, in part due to the state’s Quaker heritage, and the penalties for importing wine under the old laws could get very, very serious. A judge in the state last year, for example, ordered over 1,300 bottles of wine to be poured down the drain to penalize a man who allegedly illegally imported the wine from California and Germany, among other places. (He struck a deal to keep 1,000 other bottles.)

Elsewhere, America's liquor laws don't get much more rational. In Massachusetts, for example, happy hours are illegal. In Utah, home to the country's most specific prohibitions, no beer on tap can be more than 4.0 percent alcohol, you have to order food with your booze at restaurants, you can't order doubles, and, for restaurants open after July 2012, cocktails will be mixed only out of the sight of customers. In Maine, you can't buy a drink after 9 a.m. on Sundays, except when that Sunday happens to be St. Patrick's Day. In Louisiana, you can buy a daiquiri in a drive-through but can't drive with it if a straw is inserted into the cup. In Nevada, you can drink pretty much anywhere and public drunkenness simply isn't a crime. 

Around the world, regional regulation like this is seldom seen. In Germany, beer purity regulations are encoded in the country's law books. Alcohol is banned throughout all of Saudi Arabia, and in many other Muslim-majority countries. Other countries, like France, take alcohol to be a huge (if fading) part of their national identity, and encourage moderate, everyday drinking for healthy living . 

So why is the U.S. different? You can blame the Founding Fathers, for one thing, since they didn't care to address the issue in the Constitution, leaving states to decide how to handle it. But you can also blame our country's long, complicated, and polarized relationship with alcohol.

For centuries, Americans have drank, and drank, and drank, often at rates far surpassing other countries. If France, for example, can be personified as a refined couple at a table sharing a bottle of Beaujolais, the U.S. is the drunk at the bar taking shots and making a scene, and every so often forcing the cops to show up. But the widespread overindulgence has also inspired repeated and successful campaigns for temperance, culminating with Prohibition, a 13-year legal ban on making and selling alcohol in the U.S. that ended in December 1933.

Prohibition wasn't the first time buying booze was made illegal in America, though. The first bans, on the state level, were enacted decades before, and laid the groundwork for the wildly inconsistent mishmash of liquor laws we have today. Indeed, the Prohibition Party is the oldest third party in America, although it has never received more than 2.2 percent of the popular vote, since first appearing on the ballot in 1872.  

Most of today's laws about alcohol are rooted in a sort of puritanism, but, as the years go by, many also begin to take on their own inertia. Why can't you buy a refrigerated beer of more than 3.2 percent alcohol in Oklahoma? No one knows! But, in 2016, the state is still having a really hard time changing that. 

At any rate, it's clear this mess might have been inevitable from the beginning. 

In the decades after the Revolution, according to "Liquor Laws and Constitutional Conventions: A Legal History of the Twenty-first Amendment" by Ethan P. Davis, most Americans drank all day, everyday, in a time when the best way to get your baby to stop crying was to put some liquor in its bottle.

Pouring out alcohol during Prohibition. (Photo: Public Domain)

The first state, in fact, to make the sale or manufacture of booze illegal was Maine in 1851, mainly spurred by temperance advocates who were horrified by American drinking, Davis writes. Other states enacted similar laws, but most of these laws seem to have disappeared by the time of the Civil War; America probably needed a drink. 

Still, the drive for temperance picked up again after Reconstruction ended in 1877, and dozens of states began outlawing the manufacture and sale of booze. But there was only one problem: they couldn't stop it from being imported from other states, and, in 1898, the Supreme Court ruled that it was an American's constitutional right to buy imported alcohol, no matter what state they were living in.

And so the conflict continued, with the temperance movement continuing to pick up steam, spurred on in part, Davis notes, by anti-German sentiment stoked by World War I. Millions of German immigrants had brought their beer-drinking culture to America, setting themselves up to be partly blamed for the country's drinking problem. There were also temperance radicals, like Carrie Nation, an activist who carried out a campaign of attacks on saloons, in which she would walk in and start smashing things with a hatchet. 

In 1919, the Eighteenth Amendment passed, and, a year later, Prohibition formally began. The next 13 years were a well-documented American disaster, with the rapid rise of bootlegging and organized crime; just seven years after Prohibition began there were calls to repeal it, and, indeed, by 1933, Prohibition was officially dead. 

Happily drinking in 1938 after Prohibition's repeal. (Photo: Public Domain)

And that's where, on a state level, things got more interesting, since states were once again free to regulate alcohol as they saw fit. In the years after Prohibition's repeal, many states opted to form monopolies, in which only state-run stores sold liquors; over two dozen others set up complicated licensing systems for liquor sales, and a handful of states decided to stay dry. Every state eventually turned wet in some form, with Mississippi being the last in 1966. 

This was all, in fact, by design, because Congressional debate on alcohol always made one thing clear: as long as it was legal, it would be left up to state control. This was in part because of the divide between the pro-alcohol wets, who tended to live in cities, and the anti-alcohol drys, who tended to live rurally. Local control was important. But this also made it inevitable that the system would produce quirks. Or merely anachronisms, like South Carolina's former ban on buying booze on Election Day, which was originally intended to reduce bribery from a time, 130 years ago, when bars sometimes served as polling places. 

So think about that when you're at your regular spot in Iowa, and the bartender won't let you keep a running tab. Some lawmakers once thought about that, and probably debated it for awhile, and then made a very considered decision. 

A Twin Otter plane flies from the South Pole after a 2003 rescue mission. (Photo: Jason Medley, NSF)

The South Pole, this time of year, is in the height of winter. But that doesn't mean operations at the Amundsen-Scott research station stop. Every year, dozens of scientists hunker down for months to keep the station running and do research.

But getting sick there can be deadly. That's because, in the middle of winter, rescue operations can be very dangerous in the total darkness and extreme cold. 

Just two such operations have been launched before, one in 2001, and again two years later. But, earlier this week, the National Science Foundation, which provides funding for the station, said they were launching a third: up to two workers had fallen ill, and needed to be evacuated. 

The NSF did not give details on the workers' conditions, but in the past, the agency has set a high bar for such flights, refusing, four years ago, for example, to retrieve one worker who had a stroke. 

That's mostly because the flights are so dangerous. This year's mission involves two planes, which took off Tuesday and hope to land at Amundsen-Scott on Sunday, weather permitting. One plane plans to pick up the workers, while the other will stay back in case it's needed for a search-and-rescue mission. 

The planes, known as Twin Otters, are designed especially for cold-temperature flying, when the air is at its thinnest, the NSF said. 

"It's a very serious decision that we take to move in this direction," Kelly Falkner, the director of polar programs for the NSF, told the Washington Post. "We try to balance our decisions with all of the risks involved."

A snapshot of Drift, a kinetic chandelier featured in Future Forward. (Photo: Vice Media)

Where is the balance between human and machine—and how can it be captured by art?

That's the question driving the minds of the many artists and innovators behind The Creators Project, a group platform launched in 2009 to encourage and celebrate the arts, creativity, and technology. In partnership with the all-new Prius, their series entitled Future Forward, an array of artists will showcase interpretations of the main Prius themes, Design, Technology and Eco-Heritage.

There's a kinetic chandelier installation, titled Drift by Doris Sung; a responsive living wall, titled Reach done by VT Pro Design; and an "infinite," echoing space titled Hoshi, dreamt up by Nonotak duo, illustrator Noemi Schipfer and architect/musician Takami Nakamoto.  In addition to the pieces done in partnership with the Creator's Project, Toyota brought some original art—notably the Prius Piano, done by Unit 9, whose keys light up an actual car.

The works engage themes of perception, simulation, nature, and time. Much of the Future Forward series is interactive, encouraging people to experiment with sense and movement. Reach, for example, is made of both lasers and plant life, representing a combination of the organic and the artificial. The wall responds to visitors' movement and touch—giving the distinct impression that it is alive.

The creative director behind Reach, Michael Fullman, likens it loosely to a sea anemone. His team at VT Pro Design built the entire structure itself, with customized motorization and in-house software. The main idea behind Reach is that technology and nature can lead a mutually beneficial existence, rather than live at odds with one another.

The series began at the Industria Superstudio in New York City, and will stop next at Revel Fulton Market in Chicago, RSVP to the event here: http://futureforward-chi-day-rsvp.vice.com

Learn more about the program on The Creators Project Future Forward page: thecreatorsproject.com/futureforward

(Photo: Tigerhawkvok/CC BY-SA 3.0)

A version of this story originally appeared on Muckrock.com.

Earlier this year, the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife drew international attention for a proposal straight out of a Sci-Fi Original Pictures plot – a program that would turn an island off of the Quabbin reservoir into an endangered rattlesnake sanctuary. While praised in the conservation community, some residents, leery of an island full of snakes, took a different tack – or as one concerned citizen put it, “Have you lost all reason?”

Emails and phone logs regarding the proposal were recently released via a public records request, and while there are a few voicing support …

Most of them are some variation of “you know not what dark forces you meddle with”

Or, to put a little more bluntly …

Several pointed out that snakes can swim, rendering the protection presented by being on an island moot …

One questioned if this wasn’t part of some sinister federal plot by our reptilian overlords …

While another accused MassWildlife of being a front for a secret snake cult.

A particular irate hunter vowed to cut MassWildlife’s funding if this proposal went through and argued that the species extinction would be a net positive for the state …

Which was echoed by someone who appeared to be a genuine ophiophobe and was genuinely curious why letting them all die out would be a such a bad thing?

Another just straight-up compared snakes to polio and pointed out we’re not in a rush to bring that back, either.

One particularly helpful resident provided their family’s surprisingly robust history of snake encounters …

While another appeared to be slightly confused by the finer points of the proposal …

Finally, what kind of self-respecting B-movie would this be without somebody accusing scientists of playing God?

Read the full testimony here.

Bissu attending an Indonesian wedding. (Photo: Sharyn Davies/CC-BY-2.0)

This week, an Oregon judge ruled to allow Jamie Shupe, a 52-year-old former Army mechanic, to list themselves as non-binary—that is, neither male nor female on their driver’s license. The ruling is likely the first time that an individual has been allowed to legally identify as non-binary in the United States, and represents part of a growing effort around the world to extend legal recognition to those whose identities fall outside the masculine/feminine gender binary.

Some might assume that the shift towards viewing gender as fluid or encompassing identities beyond the binary is a novel cultural change; in fact, several non-Western cultures—both historically and today—have non-binary understandings of gender. In Indonesia, one ethnic group shows us that the idea that gender identity is expressed in more ways than two is actually hundreds of years old.

The Bugis are the largest ethnic group in South Sulawesi, Indonesia, and are unique in their conception of five distinct gender identities. Aside from the cisgender masculinity and femininity that Westerners are broadly familiar with, the Bugis interpretation of gender includes calabai (feminine men), calalai (masculine women) and bissu, which anthropologist Sharyn Graham describes as a “meta-gender” considered to be “a combination of all genders.” In a 2002 article for the International Institute of Asian Studies’ Newsletter, Graham explains the key role bissu play in Bugis culture.

If you were to ask someone in South Sulawesi how they imagine their world came to be, you would probably be told a narrative in which the bissu play a central role.

‘You ask how this world came to be? Well let me tell you. Up there in the heavens, the gods decided they would bring life to this lonely planet. They therefore sent down one of their most aspiring deities, Batara Guru. But Batara Guru was not good at organizing things. To do all of this, two bissu were needed. So the gods sent down two bissu who flanked Batara Guru as he descended. And when they arrived, the bissu set about making everything blossom; they created language, culture, customs [adat], and all of the things that a world needs if it is going to blossom. That’s how the world began you see’ (Haj Bacco’).

Bissu purposefully dress in ways that blend traditional male and female characteristics (Graham provides an example of a bissu wearing a traditionally masculine knife while also wearing flowers in their hair) and have existed in Bugis culture since before Islam arrived in Indonesia in the 13th century. Even today, bissu play an important role in local communities by providing blessings—at marriages, before harvests, and even before Bugis Muslims make the pilgrimage to Mecca. To the Bugis, bissu are not just a blend of masculine and feminine, they are also a mixture of mortal and deity, able to become possessed by the spirits through elaborate, dangerous rituals.

Sadly, bissu were persecuted and suppressed under Islamic fundamentalist and Communist regimes following Indonesia’s independence from Dutch rule in 1949. A 2015 Al Jazeera article detailed anthropologist Halilintar Lathief’s efforts to revive the bissu presence and role in Bugis communities, inaugurating the first new bissu in decades in 2002. In the town of Sigeri, for example, “being bissu is now intertwined with gay and transgender identity,” although many view becoming a bissu as an unnecessary hardship as calabai and other non-binary individuals now have greater economic opportunities working in salons or as wedding planners.

Around the world, individuals who identify outside of the gender binary are seeing increasing legal and social recognition. In 2014, South Asia’s 4,000-year-old hijra third-gender community won a hard-fought victory when the Indian Supreme Court declared discrimination against hijra illegal and instituted a third gender option on government documents (the hijra have also won this right in Nepal, Pakistan, and Bangladesh). Australia has allowed a third gender option on passports since 2011, and in the United Kingdom, the proliferation of the option to use the “Mx” title on government and bank documents encouraged the Oxford English Dictionary to officially add the honorific last year.

While there are still many institutions where the gender binary remains the only option, these incremental steps are immensely meaningful for those affected. As Shupe told NPR’s All Things Considered, “Most of the excitement is feeling the freedom of being set free of this classification system that I do not agree with.” And, as seen with the Bugis, it’s a classification system that’s not as universal as some might think.

Two leaves from The Mirror of Human Salvation. These pages were reused as a wrapper for a book at some later time. The ghosting of the book it adorned can still be seen in the dark, abraded portion that spans the two pages. (Image: The Walters Art Museum/CC-0)

Next Saturday, Baltimore’s Walters Art Museum will open its newest exhibition, Waste Not: The Art of Medieval Recycling. The exhibit highlights a common medieval practice that isn’t frequently discussed—medieval repurposing of artifacts and manuscripts from earlier eras. As curator Lynley Anne Herbert explains to the Baltimore Sun, “Well, people have been recycling for thousands of years.”

After the Roman Empire collapsed, connections to Asia and North Africa facilitated by the empire’s trade routes broke down, essentially making medieval Europe a smaller, more self-contained place, with less access to new goods and materials. As historian Robin Fleming explained in a 2010 lecture, the decline of the empire was particularly keenly felt in Britain, which was left without industry, trade, or craft when Roman forces abandoned the island in the fifth century. According to Fleming, the British raided Roman ruins for building materials  to the extent that until the 11th century, Christian churches in Britain were constructed mostly from scavenged Roman materials. This assertion has been verified through architectural surveys, one of which discovered over 300 churches around London built from Roman ruins. Similarly, tile, ceramics, pottery, and iron were all reclaimed and repurposed.

Additionally, recycling and repurposing of older items occurred on a more personal level. The museum exhibit provides examples of book pages being torn out and used as dust covers for smaller (and apparently more valued) books. In fact, old manuscript pages were frequently recycled in a variety of ways; Dr. Henrike Lähnemann has researched the use of manuscript fragments to line dresses, and medieval book historian Erik Kwakkel has discovered an example of a manuscript—in this case, a 13th-century love poem—being recycled as lining for a bishop's miter. Herbert told the Sun that manuscripts were particularly likely to be recycled because parchment was expensive and time-consuming to manufacture, and Kwakkel points out in a blog post that the development of the Gutenberg press led to many handwritten books being marked for recycling.

These examples of medieval recycling all fall under the category of items recycled out of frugality, or due to a lack of raw materials, but the exhibit also highlights a different kind of recycling—repurposing objects and materials for ideological reasons.

For example, the Sun discusses the ideological repurposing of a second-century marble bust of Hercules featured in the exhibit. Twelve centuries after the bust was carved, someone apparently decided the bust could be remade into a saint:

"They drilled into his beard to make it appear curlier," Herbert said. "They also added fine lines and wrinkles to his face, which ages him. He doesn't look quite as youthful and perfect and beautiful as he did when he was first made, though maybe he looks a little wiser."

This kind of recycling was hardly an isolated incident. In The Renaissance Discovery of Classical Antiquity, Roberto Weiss describes similar repurposing of Roman art, writing, “Sometimes the figures of the consuls carved on them were turned into saints or biblical characters, as happened in a diptych now at Monza, where they became King David and St. Gregory, and in one at Prague, where the consul was transformed into none other than St. Peter himself.” How thrifty! 

An extreme heat warning in Death Valley. (Photo: Graeme Maclean/CC-BY-2.0)

If you’re in the American Southwest, you’re probably already aware that your weekend has been dominated by what may become a record-breaking heat wave in the area, with temperatures hitting the triple-digits across the region.

The National Weather Service has issued Excessive Heat Warnings, and local officials are encouraging citizens to avoid going outdoors while preparing first responders to help particularly vulnerable groups.

To paraphrase a pop music hit, “Welcome to summer, it’s been waiting for you.”

Temperature forecast for 5PM Sunday; temperatures are expected to peak on Monday, the first day of summer. (Image: National Weather Service)

What’s behind the high-temperature summer kickoff? An increasingly common meteorological phenomenon dubbed the “heat dome.” Basically, heat domes are created when a high-pressure system forms in the mid- to upper-atmosphere; the air pressure pushes warm air down towards the surface and traps it there, resulting in higher — often much higher — than normal temperatures. The term first came into heavy use in 2011, according to a New York Times investigation into its growing popularity, although many meteorologists quibble with its descriptive accuracy. As Oklahoma City weatherman Gary England told the Times, “I’ve used ‘heat dome’ off and on over the years, but I think it’s a little bit misleading; it’s not shaped like that.”

“Heat bubble,” actually better describes the shape, according to experts, but it also lacks the apocalyptic connotations that many suffering through temperatures over 100º probably feel is warranted.

Indeed, it’s difficult to understate the extremity of a heat dome’s effects; last year, a heat dome over the Middle East resulted in a heat index of 165º — the second-highest heat index ever recorded anywhere — in Iran.

This weekend’s heat dome has the potential for similar record-shattering effects. The intensity of the high pressure ridge that creates a heat dome is measured by “geopotential height,” and computer models are placing the geopotential height of this heat dome well outside the normal climate range. As the Washington Post explains, this means the models “predict this ridge will be more extreme than anything observed in this particular climate data set that dates back to 1979.”

Already, the heat has caused power outages in Orange County, California, and officials are worried the temperatures could make the still-burning Sherpa fire in Santa Barbara county even worse, warning of the potential for “extreme fire behavior” or spreading.

As with many other extreme weather events around the world, climate change may be making heat domes more common than ever. Earlier this week, the Washington Post detailed the findings of meteorologist Ryan Maue, who examined climate data going back to 1953 and concluded that heat domes are getting both more frequent and more extreme. Maue believes the overall rise in global temperatures due to climate change has created an environment more conducive to extreme weather, including heat domes. “I’d surmise that the [6,000-meter] threshold — while an arbitrary big round number — is now more easily exceeded,” he told the Post.

Since 1958 only 3 other events w/max height over W USA > 6005 m (Sun forecast)
July 7, 1989: 6020 m
Aug 7, 2001: 6011 m
Aug 15, 2003: 6008 m

— Ryan Maue (@RyanMaue) June 15, 2016

In 2013, National Climatic Data Center scientist Jake Crouch made a similar assertion, explaining to Livescience that while individual weather events can’t really be linked to long-term trends, the overall increase in average temperature does increase the frequency of events like heat domes. In the same article, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research scientist Jeff Weber pointed out that as the Arctic warms, the jet stream — which is “powered” by the differences in polar and equatorial temperatures — grows weaker, meaning the high-pressure systems behind heat domes stay in place longer. So, not only can we look forward to more heat domes, they may last longer as well.

It’s certainly not what Arizonans, who face potential highs of 120º tomorrow, hoped to hear. If you’re living under the dome right now, make sure to stay hydrated, limit time outdoors, and keep an eye on pets and neighbors. Currently, temperatures are expected to start falling on Tuesday.