Eideard

Edmar Araújo still remembers the awe. As he cleared trees on his family’s land decades ago near Rio Branco, an outpost in the far western reaches of the Brazilian Amazon, a series of deep earthen avenues carved into the soil came into focus.

“These lines were too perfect not to have been made by man,” said Mr. Araújo, a 62-year-old cattleman. “The only explanation I had was that they must have been trenches for the war against the Bolivians.”

But these were no foxholes, at least not for any conflict waged here at the dawn of the 20th century. According to stunning archaeological discoveries here in recent years, the earthworks on Mr. Araújo’s land and hundreds like them nearby are much, much older — potentially upending the conventional understanding of the world’s largest tropical rain forest.

The deforestation that has stripped the Amazon since the 1970s has also exposed a long-hidden secret lurking underneath thick rain forest: flawlessly designed geometric shapes spanning hundreds of yards in diameter.

Alceu Ranzi, a Brazilian scholar who helped discover the squares, octagons, circles, rectangles and ovals that make up the land carvings, said these geoglyphs found on deforested land were as significant as the famous Nazca lines, the enigmatic animal symbols visible from the air in southern Peru…

For some scholars of human history in Amazonia, the geoglyphs in the Brazilian state of Acre and other archaeological sites suggest that the forests of the western Amazon, previously considered uninhabitable for sophisticated societies partly because of the quality of their soils, may not have been as “Edenic” as some environmentalists contend…

While researchers piece together the Amazon’s ecological history, mystery still shrouds the origins of the geoglyphs and the people who made them. So far, 290 such earthworks have been found in Acre, along with about 70 others in Bolivia and 30 in the Brazilian states of Amazonas and Rondônia.

RTFA.

Slash-and-burn deforestation is just as likely to lead to destruction of the cultures hidden by that forest. I doubt of many of those moving in to exploit the land are any more burdened with ethics about history than they are about ecology.

Shhhhh! Do you hear that? Neither do I. I’m talking about reaction from critics of the auto bailout to news that Chrysler will pay back the $7.5 billion that it borrowed from taxpayers of the United States and Canada. Chrysler is raising the cash to pay back its government loans through a combination of bond sales, a commercial loan and a cash infusion from its partner Italian automaker Fiat…

Granted, all this constitutes a refinancing of Chrysler’s debt and the company is far from being out of woods – it still owes the $7.5 billion. But the fact that an automaker that had been given up for dead a few years ago is now healthy enough to convince private investors to pony up billions is a positive sign. And the chief issue among bailout critics wasn’t the long-term survival of Chrysler (they were willing to let the automaker die after all) but whether the company could ever pay back the money it borrowed from the government. Well, it just did.

So Chrysler lives to fight another day, thousands of Americans keep their jobs and the company continues to expand and post profits. Which is good news, unless you are a Toyota state Senator, are paid by a think tank to opine that government can never do anything right, or are an ideologue who’s genetically incapable of uttering the word “government” without immediately blurting out the word “boondoggle.”

Ideologue being the operative word in my humble experience. Usually, the sloganeer is someone who could care less about the lot of someone who spent decades in an auto plant – overpaid for all the fun he had schlepping fenders onto a Chrysler chassis.

Nope. I have a lot more sympathy for the folks who spent a significant portion of their lives in the not-so-healthy atmosphere of an American factory instead of the ivory tower that makes some people “superior” to those getting a paycheck for manual labor.

Millions of office workers may be arriving at their desks earlier than ever to impress their bosses during these tough economic times, but it would appear most are not actually doing any work.

The first 31 minutes of every worker’s day is spent gossiping, drinking coffee, debating last night’s television and reading the paper, rather than actually turning on his or her computer and doing anything constructive, according to a survey.

The time wasted equates to a paid day off every three weeks – or 16 extra holiday days a year, the survey for officebroker, an online commercial property broker, estimated.

Many of the office workers appear keen and dedicated by eating their breakfast at their desk, giving the impression that getting to their place of work early is more important than precious time at home with their families.

But this is just a ruse, the study suggested. More than nine out of ten workers admitted they got down to work later than their contracted starting time. More than a third, 37 per cent, of those surveyed said they regularly ate at their desks before starting work.

Other popular activities that office workers undertake to warm themselves before earning money for their employer included logging onto Facebook or other social networking sites and reading newspapers’ websites.

Official statistics suggest that these delaying tactics may, in fact, help workers warm up before undertaking a very productive day. The Office for National Statistics has indicated that productivity per worker – the amount of GDP created by each person in employment – has increased following the recession, as fewer workers left in employment undertake more tasks at each company.

Whining about newspaper reading seems especially counter-productive. If you’re in any sort of position requiring interaction with the local public, knowing what is going on in the region is useful as all get-out.

I convinced the boss at the last construction company I worked for to get a subscription delivered to the office early every morning. It was there waiting for me when I opened the office. I read it while having my first coffee and always found a few leads. In any case, I had a better idea of what was going on in the community than competitors who simply relied on local radio or television.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/8304062/31-minutes-at-office-before-we-start-working.html

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Periodical cicadas, insects best known for their 17-year long life cycle, are emerging four years early in several Atlantic states. The emergence was first noticed in Greensboro, NC, on Monday and has since been reported in Maryland.

“This appears to be a four-year acceleration of the periodical cicada Brood II,” said Dr. Gene Kritsky. Kritsky is an expert on these four-year early emergences being the first to predict an early appearance of the cicadas in 2000.

“It is thought that the timing of the emergence is determined during the first five years of the underground development of the juvenile cicadas.” Kritsky and his students monitor the cicada growth by digging up the insects each year. “We discovered that many cicadas were growing faster than expected, which led the prediction of their early emergence in 2000,” he said.

The emergence this year is the fifth 17-year cicada brood to appear early. Kritsky described the early appearance of Brood I in 1995 in eastern Ohio and predicted the early appearance of Brood X. Brood XIII appeared early in parts of Chicago in 2003 and Brood XIV accelerated in parts of Indiana and Ohio in 2004. This year’s acceleration is overlapping with the distribution of Brood II.

The cause of these early emergences is unknown, but Kritsky, in a paper to be published in the Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of Science, has found evidence suggesting that mild winters can affect the trees that young cicadas feed upon which in turn interferes with the cicadas’ timekeeping resulting in their emerging early. “This phenomenon might be another biological response to increasing temperatures,” Kritsky said.

People witnessing cicadas this year are encouraged to report their cicadas on mapping websites, at www.msj.edu/cicada.

Cicadas are one of those omnipresent bits of background life to summer in many climate zones and continents. On one hand, I kind of like their sound because it reminds me of early days in the hills near the Hudson River in upstate New York. On the other, I mostly miss the sound, nowadays, because of my tinnitus.

The relationship of climate change to periodicity is understandable. If you realize the essential premise of interrelatedness of events and processes that is ecology, side effects are never a surprise. Though, understanding all the links ain’t always so easy.

Toyota Plug-In Hybrid at Detroit Auto Show
Daylife/Getty Images

Toyota plans to introduce its plug-in hybrid electric vehicle late this year, a year earlier than originally planned, and a year ahead of the Chevrolet Volt. James Lentz, the president of Toyota Motor Sales USA, said in an interview that Toyota planned initially to make about 500 plug-in hybrids, which would be made available first to commercial customers. About 150 plug-ins will be scheduled for customers in the United States.

General Motors said it planned to introduce its plug-in Volt by late 2010. The Volt, which will be made in Detroit, and powered by a lithium ion battery, is the centerpiece of GM’s efforts to market environmentally friendly cars.

The Toyota plug-in hybrid will be built in Japan, where Toyota also builds the Prius. The first plug-ins will be essentially built by hand, said Masami Doi, Toyota’s general manager of its global strategic planning department.

The plug-ins also will be powered by lithium ion batteries, Lentz said, unlike the Prius, which will continue to be powered by a nickel-metal hydride battery. The lithium-ion batteries will be produced in Japan by Panasonic, which also produces batteries for the Prius, Doi said.

Lentz said the first Toyota plug-ins would be provided to commercial customers like utility companies and others where their use could be carefully monitored. “We’ll learn how they’re used, and where people want to recharge them.”

GM announced it first. Toyota gets it to the market first. See anything consistent in this picture?

The ability to make fire millennia ago was likely a key factor in the migration of prehistoric hominids from Africa into Eurasia, a researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Institute of Archaeology believes on the basis of findings at the Gesher Benot Ya’aqov archaeological site in Israel.

Earlier excavations there…showed that the occupants of the site – who are identified as being part of the Acheulian culture that arose in Africa about 1.6 million years ago — had mastered fire-making ability as long as 790,000 years ago. This revelation pushed back previously accepted dates for man’s fire-making ability by a half-million years.

Dr. Nira Alperson-Afil said that further, detailed investigation of burned flint at designated areas in all eight levels of civilization found at the site now shows that “concentrations of burned flint items were found in distinct areas, interpreted as representing the remnants of ancient hearths.” This tells us, she said, that once acquired, this fire-making ability was carried on over a period of many generations.

She said that other studies which have reported on the use of fire only verified the presence of burned archaeological materials, but were unable to penetrate further into the question of whether humans were “fire-makers” from the very early stages of fire-use.

“The new data from Gesher Benot Ya’akov is exceptional as it preserved evidence for fire-use throughout a very long occupational sequence. This continual, habitual, use of fire suggests that these early humans were not compelled to collect that fire from natural conflagrations, rather they were able to make fire at will,” Alperson-Afil said.

Friends know that I consider Quest for Fire to be semi-autobiographical. This study is very helpful to my emotional well-being.

Although 77 percent of moms nationally start to breastfeed, the new Brigham Young University study found that only 36 percent of babies are breastfed through six months, well short of the federal government’s goal to hit 50 percent by 2010. The American Association of Pediatricians recommends continued breastfeeding through the first year.

“Breastfeeding promotion programs encourage women to start but don’t provide the support to continue,” said Renata Forste.

Breast milk is considered healthiest for babies because it is easily digested and provides antibodies that prevent ear infections and other illnesses. Earlier work by Forste supports research highlighting the link between breastfeeding and infant survival.

Many personal characteristics, such as a mother’s age and education level, influence whether a baby is breastfed. “Where the need is greatest, breastfeeding happens the least,” Forste said. “It’s a sad irony both in terms of health needs and the expense these families incur buying formula.”

Sad but true. There probably should be some effort at increasing public acceptance, as well. Every month or so, I read about some dummy who’s offended by a mom breastfeeding her child.