Archive for March, 2012

age of western branch of East African Rift Valley redated

Friday, March 30th, 2012

It’s now dated at the same age as the eastern branch, 25 to 30 million years ago.

new Bolaño story in Harper’s

Friday, March 30th, 2012

“I Can’t Read.”

I need to subscribe. It’s not as if I’ll be working in bookstores forever.

a release of unreleased Can?!

Friday, March 30th, 2012

a new 3 CD set of unreleased Can that sounds as cool as this? Yeah, that sounds goddamned groovy. This sounds like early material to my unschooled ear (pre-Mooney?) and i’m even more eager to hear the Tago Mago era stuff.

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Angélica Gorodischer’s Trafalgar in English translation

Friday, March 30th, 2012

Small Beer Press will have Angélica Gorodischer’s Trafalgar in English translation soon enough. It looks like a story about storytelling, which always tickles my fancy. I loved Kalpa Imperial and have been waiting for more of her work to appear in English.

In the meantime, i’ll just order and read the anthology of Mexican sci-fi and fantasy Three Messages and a Warning, which slipped right past me.

earthworks in Peru dated 2,000 years older than the Nazca lines

Friday, March 30th, 2012

Animal effigy mounds in the coastal valley of Peru, with the oldest dating to 4,200 years ago. They have astronomical alignments, of course.

 

all domesticated cattle descend from a single stock 10,500 years ago

Thursday, March 29th, 2012

All cattle are descended from as few as 80 animals that were domesticated from wild ox in the Near East some 10,500 years ago, according to a new genetic study.

2,300 year old lyre discovered in cave on Isle of Skye

Thursday, March 29th, 2012

It’s now the oldest stringed instrument known in Western Europe.

Earl Scruggs

Thursday, March 29th, 2012
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early Sami petroglyphs?

Friday, March 23rd, 2012

The article doesn’t explicitly state that these carvings are by the Sami, but they are 5,000 years old and the Sami have been in that area for 5,000 years….

baboons kidnap & raise feral dogs

Friday, March 23rd, 2012
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The theory of wolves approaching human then getting lured into domestication with the opportunity for free food seems quaint, doesn’t it? There seems something in the psyche of monkeys and apes that is wired to adopt other animals into their communities for protection.