For anyone interested in western railroads, one of the members of the Google Earth Community has posted a file showing both the original and present day routes of the famous Virginia & Truckee Railroad. Once you’ve downloaded the file, you can install it by firing up Google Earth and selecting Add/Network Link from the menu bar.
Protecting us from drugs
Even medically necessary drugs, it seems, are a danger that the TSA must work hard to defend against.
I know this is a terrible thing to say, but things have reached the point where, if somebody were to be arrested for beating up a TSA screener at an airport, and I were on the jury, I would most likely not convict that person, even if I was convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that they were guilty.
Filed under Politics
More books
We had a little extra money, so I decided to spring for six volumes of the Handbook of North American Indians. They arrived today, and after looking though them all, I realize there are a couple more I really should get as well. But at least I’ve got something to keep me busy over the weekend.
Also, this is my 100th post!
Filed under Anthropology, Archaeology
Railroad history
A valuable reference for archaeologists, historians, modelers, and anyone else interested in early trains, a compilation of bulletins 1-10 of the Railway and Locomotive Historical Society is available for free online. (At 617 pages it’s a rather large download, so people with slow connections be warned.)
Although published in the 1920s, most of the articles deal with 19th century railroading. The bulletins are weighted toward Eastern U.S. railroads, which is not surprising to anybody who has seen a railroad map of North America. There are, however, a number of articles on western railroads as well, especially on the Central Pacific. There are also a few dealing with lines in the U.K. and Canada.
Filed under Railroad
Archaeologists don’t dig dinosaurs
But sometimes we do uncover fossils in an archaeological context. In the case reported here, marine fossils seem to have been used in a religious context at Palenque. The Maya of the Late Classic period apparently knew that they had uncovered the remains of long dead sea creatures.
However, I would not be so quick to conclude that finding those fossils caused the Maya to believe that the world was originally covered with water. A primordial ocean is such a widespread element in mythology that I find it far more likely the fossils merely reinforced an existing cosmogony. It will be interesting to see what further research will turn up.
Filed under Archaeology, Folklore
Are we alone?
According to a recent scientific analysis, the answer to this burning question is… maybe. Astrophysicists David Spiegel and Edwin Turner, have determined, using statistical methods, that the probability of life arising on another planet similar to Earth can not currently be estimated. That is, the fact that life appeared very early in the history of our own planet doesn’t necessarily mean anything at all about how likely it is to exist on some other world.
On the other hand, Andrei Finkelstein recently predicted at a press conference that astronomers would detect signals from an extraterrestrial civilization within 20 years. Although I can’t find any direct information about the reasoning behind Finkelstein’s assertion, he appears to be using the same numbers Seth Shostak had previously proposed for the famous Drake Equation.
The Drake Equation, of course, is one of the better known examples of a SWAG (Scientific Wild-Ass Guess). Most of the factors are completely unknown. At present, we obviously have only a single example of a planet with life, of life evolving to intelligence, and of intelligence developing the technology to transmit electromagnetic (i.e. radio) signals. And for the last factor in the equation, the length of time that a technological civilization continues to exist and to be detectable by radio (usually designated “L”), we have no examples whatsoever, since our own society has clearly not yet reached that limit.
Shostak’s own guess, which he gives in The Value of “L” and the Cosmic Bottleneck (included in Cosmos & Culture: Cultural Evolution in a Cosmic Context) is that the average lifespan of technological civilizations is somewhat greater than 1,000,000 years. Multiplying this by the values he assigns to the other factors in the Drake Equation, he concludes that there are around 10,000 such civilizations in the galaxy at the present time, which is the same number Finkelstein uses.
If there really are 10,000 planets with technological civilizations in this galaxy, then Finkelstein is probably right about the likelihood of detecting one of them within the next 20 years. If, on the other hand, there are only 2 such worlds (the result that one obtains by assuming that L is 200 years, and continuing to use Shostak’s estimates for each of the other factors) it is extremely unlikely that we will detect the other one before our own civilization is finished. Personally, I’d like to believe that L is very large. But as an archaeologist, I can’t find even the slightest reason to think that it’s anywhere near 1,000,000 years.
One interesting thought does occurs to me, though. Archaeologists know of the existence of a large number of human societies that no longer exist, in the sense that they have no identifiable descendant culture. In each case, we know of their existence because they left behind physical evidence that can be detected and interpreted. In fact, any society that significantly modifies their environment in a patterned way, or that utilizes durable materials to make tools and other objects, is likely to leave behind some evidence of their existence and activities. That being the case, even if we never make contact with a living extraterrestrial civilization, we may someday find out about their existence and at least some of their achievements. Equally, somebody that we are destined never to meet might someday learn about us in the same way.
Filed under Space
Not-so-obscure technologies, part 1
This is the clearest explanations I’ve ever seen of one of the more crucial technologies of the modern world:
I’m not sure of the date, but it looks like it’s sometime in the 1930s. The filename suggests 1937.
Filed under Technology
Obscure technologies, part 5
The Singing Bird Pistol was built as a work of art rather than for any utilitarian purpose. Dating from the early nineteenth century, it is one of the most amazing examples of clockwork animation I’ve ever seen. To really appreciate it though, you have to see this video of it working.
Filed under Technology
Mesa Grande opening up to visitors
One of the most significant Hohokam sites in Arizona is going to be open to the public, perhaps as early as next February. Mesa Grande was a political center that helped control an extensive network of irrigation canals in the Phoenix area more than 500 years ago.
Whenever an important archaeological site is open to visitors there are always concerns about possible damage, and I sympathize with those who want sites like this one to be protected. But education in archaeology is as necessary as investigation. If the findings of archaeologists are available only in the professional literature and never discussed outside the academy, then it becomes hard to see the point of doing it at all. In addition, funding for archaeology is very heavily dependent upon public interest. If enough people lose interest in understanding and preserving the past, archaeology will largely disappear, and antiquities protection laws will no longer be enforced.
Also, speaking purely for myself, I’m looking forward to seeing the place.
Filed under Archaeology
To boldly go…
The Boston Globe has a good story about NASA’s latest ambitious proposal: sending a crew of astronauts to one of the asteroids by 2025. I imagine they would choose a near-Earth asteroid, and not one from the main belt. Even so, it sounds like a challenging engineering project.
However, I expect that the engineering will be the easy part of this mission. The hard part will be getting enough support from Congress, the President, and ultimately the American people to make it happen.
Filed under Space
