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Sea Dinosaurs

Legends about sea monsters have existed since ancient times. The first fossils of great marine reptiles were discovered long before dinosaurs. This is because when marine animals die, their bodies sink to the ocean floor where they are covered with sediment and would eventually, through a process called lithification, become part of the sedimentary rock.

At the beginning of the Jurassic Period, two main lines of swimming reptiles emerged: the ichthyosaurs and the plesiosaurs.

The ichthyosaurs were reptiles shaped like modern sharks, whales, or porpoises. These were probably the first land reptiles who ventured back into the sea. The plesiosaurs had flattened, oval-shaped bodies and usually had long necks. Evidence suggests both groups may have given birth to live young.

Ichthyosaurs are very well known from hundreds of specimens from dozens of sites around the world. They were typically around 2 meters long, and were the most water-adapted of all reptiles, with swimming flippers rather than walking limbs. Their bodies were stream-lined, reducing water resistance, in a shape like modern dolphins. Like marine mammals today, they lacked gills, and therefore had to visit the surface regularly to breathe air through their nostrils or blowholes.

Plesiosaurus was discovered by Mary Anning, the first professional fossil collector. Its paddle-shaped fins were stiff and inflexible, suggesting that plesiosaurs swam by means of a "flying" motion, similar to penguins or sea lions. There may have been a flat fin on the tail for steering, although paleontologists are not in agreement about this. Plesiosaurs also seem to have swallowed gastroliths, or stomach stones, to adjust their buoyancy. This is also found in modern marine animals that swim with a similar flying action.

We don't know much about the giant sea turtles that lived during the Mesozoic Era. They grew up to 15 feet in length, and could weigh thousands of pounds. The massive shells were up to 8 feet across. The extreme weight of the shell may have been a factor that kept them from growing even larger. Crawling onto land to lay eggs would have been an extremely difficult task for such a large and heavy animal.

Turtles fed low enough on the food chain that they did not have to compete with other marine reptiles for food.. They also maintained a connection with the land, retaining their ability to crawl across sand beaches. They were able to become large and relatively numerous during the Late Cretaceous, but were relatively benign compared to other more predatory sea reptiles.

For my previous posts on dinosaurs, click here.

For a great book on all kinds of prehistoric sea monsters, including 3-D pictures (glasses included) check out Sea Monsters: Prehistoric Creatures of the Deep, by Mike Everhart.

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When You Don't See Me

When You Don't See Me, by Timothy James Beck

$10.50 in the Hansisgreat Gift Shop

ISBN: 0758216866

This is a light novel whose main character, Nick, is a young gay man. It's a sort of romantic novel, although the romance is not all-consuming in terms of the plot. This is a good thing, because the author was able to touch on several other great themes: coming of age, establishing one's own identity, and coming to terms with mortality. Generally, I don't recommend a lot of "gay" books because they're usually sort of frivolous. This novel hit just the right balance: true depth and well developed characters, but it's not too dark or heavy.

Nick Dunhill is nineteen years old, and is a very willful young man. He leaves his parents' home in Wisconsin without a word of explanation, and moves in with his gay Uncle Blaine. 

Soon he leaves Blaine as well, and shares a squalid apartment in Greenwich Village which he shares with three other roommates. 

He drops out of college and works for a cleaning service, from which he's quickly fired, and doesn't seem to have any ambition or direction at all. His parents are worried. His uncle is worried. His roommates are not sure he'll be able to come up with his share of the rent.

He soon gets a job in a prestigious and mysterious firm called Wamsley & Wilkes. It's a suspiciously good deal in a town where decent jobs are hard to find. This is when things begin to turn around for him.

Our hero is weighed down by the alienation that comes with youth: he can do anything he wants, but doesn't know what he wants. In fact, he's used to making himself as invisible as possible to those around him. As he becomes more of a success, he's forced to confront the fact that he's becoming an adult and needs to find his place in the world.

His family and friends make a number of heart-wrenching pleas for Nick to straighten out and fly right, but he's determined to live a life of obscurity and poverty

Overall, it's a touching, sensitive, and character-driven book. Nick seems like a really nice boy who's just a bit mixed up: the folly of youth. He even frustrates himself at times. Needless to say, in time he gains confidence and makes a new life for himself as a worthwhile and successful adult man.

There are a few scenes that might qualify as steamy, but not raunchy or explicit. A good choice if you're looking for an engaging book with a few cheap thrills. Funny at times, and brimming with all the intrigue and excitement New York City has to offer, When You Don't See Me is a terrific choice for the gay man in your life.

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The History of Civilization

Chapter Twelve: Pythagoras

Crotona was a Greek colony founded in southern Italy around 710 BC. It had the closest natural harbor north of Sicily, and enough trade to give the citizens a comfortable prosperity. It was here that Pythagoras founded his famous school, where he taught hundreds of pupils including both men and women.

He was born in Samos around 580 BC. During his youth he traveled, we are told, to Arabia, Syria, Egypt, India, and Gaul. Returning to Samos he found the oppressive dictatorship of Polycrates, and so migrated to Crotona.

Pythagoras established rules which nearly turned the school into a monastery. The members swore an oath of loyalty to Pythagoras and one another. They were not to eat meat, eggs, or beans. Wine was also forbidden, possibly because they believed in reincarnation and were wary of eating their ancestors.

To purify the soul they maintained celibacy, and observed many peculiar religious taboos. They would not touch a white rooster, walk on highways, or use iron to stir a fire.

The Pythagoreans were the first to divide numbers into odd and even, and into prime and factorable. They noticed that if you pluck a string, then halve its length, it plays the same note but an octave higher. Nature, it was believed,  was filled with these sorts of hidden mathematical codes, which were the key to understanding how the Universe works.

Pythagoras and his pupils made their imprint not only on mathematics, but also on philosophy. In fact, the very word philosophy is thought to be one of his creations.

The universe, he said, is a living sphere with the earth at its center. The earth, too, is a sphere, revolving with the other planets from west to east. Pythagoras was one of the first who considered the earth a sphere.

Surely his most famous contribution is the Pythagorean Theorem, which says that the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the remaining sides, expressed as:

A² + B² = C²

Pythagoras was said to be so overjoyed by this theorem that he sacrificed an ox to celebrate its discovery, although this seems unlikely considering he was a life-long vegetarian.

The Pythagoreans were the first to appreciate the very concept of numbers, and sought to employ numbers to explain every aspect of the physical world. Legend says that when one of them discovered irrational numbers, which cannot be expressed as a decimal or fraction, the others threw him overboard into the Mediterranean out of fear and revenge.

No one is certain what became of this great mind or his academy in the long run. In one story he starves himself to death, perhaps feeling that eighty years old was old enough. In another version he captured by rivals because he refused to escape by walking across a field of beans. His society survived for three centuries in scattered groups throughout Greece.

His theorem of right triangles is learned by everyone in high school geometry. Pythgoras was the founder, as far as we know, of both science and philosophy in Europe, an impressive achievement for any man.

To be continued...

For my previous posts on civilization, click here.

If you're interested in Pythagoras and the development of early math, check out Mathematics for the Nonmathematician, by Morris Kline. It's got a great chapter on the Pythagoreans, and it will redefine how you think of numbers and arithmetic.

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The Immortal Class

The Immortal Class, by Travis Hugh Culley

$19.95 in the Hansisgreat Gift Shop

ISBN: 0375504281

Travis was only twenty-five years old when he wrote The Immortal Class, and it's an impressive achievement for such a young author. Part memoir and part urban philosophy, this book is the autobiography of a Chicago bike messenger.

It's a rough business, apparently. Travis pedals countless miles delivering packages across the city landscape. He's frequently injured in accidents, hassled by the police, and generally abused because of his occupation's maverick status. Chicago is known for its harsh winters. Not a fun place to ride a bicycle for eight hours a day in January.

His reasons for enduring all this is very simple: he enjoys his work and would rather be happy than traditionally successful.

The author is a very bright and likable guy. He's obviously quite an athlete as well, but with a serious rebellious streak.

Biking represents a return to a more idyllic life, even in the midst of the cityscape. It's also a refreshing return to the use of human power for mobility, and it reduces overcrowding and traffic congestion.

Indeed, traffic is a central theme of The Immortal Class. Culley finds little to admire in the proliferation of the car. Rightly so: they're dangerous, cause pollution, and keep our country dependent on foreign fuel.

During the Depression, the federally funded New Deal Program ran the first set of state roads through America. This created jobs for unemployed workers, but it also created a dependency on automobiles in America. The passenger-train industry was forced to make severe cutbacks due to the new "motor traffic".

Today it is understood that 400 square feet are necessary to park a car. This heavily influenced demand for private automobiles soon translated into equally strained demand for space, causing the great migration into the suburbs. 

Very insightful at times, and loaded with wit and wry humor, there's a lot more to this book than the life story of a delivery boy.

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Argentina

I've decided to try a new type of post: a short dossier on various nations of the world. Obviously it's impossible to summarize the culture of millions of people over thousands of years in one short blog post. These are just the most essential basics.

Let me know if you enjoy these posts. We begin with the beautiful country of Argentina...

Total area: 2,766,890 sq km (slightly less than 30% the size of the United States

Population: 39,537,943

Language: Spanish

Capital: Buenos Aires (pop. 12,960,976)

President: Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner

The capital city was founded by Spanish explorers in 1536. The United Provinces of the Rio Plata declared their independence from Spain in 1816. After Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay went their separate ways, the area that remained became Argentina.

More than 90% of the population is European in origin. Unlike most Latin American countries, Argentina has few mestizos (persons of mixed European and Indian ancestry). The country's population was heavily shaped by immigrants from throughout Europe, most notably from Italy and Spain.

Up until the mid 20th century, Argentina's history was dominated by periods of internal political conflict between rival parties representing civilian and military factions. In 1946 Juan Peron won the presidential election. He rewrote the nation's constitution, extended rights to women, and redistributed wealth to workers and the urban poor. 

In October 1945, Peron married the actress Eva Duarte, who, as first lady of Argentina, managed labor relations and social services for her husband's government. Adored by the masses, whom she manipulated with consummate skill, she was, as much as anyone, responsible for the popular following of the Peron regime. After his death, the nation entered a period of chaos, and the army launched what was later called the "dirty war", during which up to 20,000 people disappeared and were never heard from again.

Democracy returned in 1983, and has persisted in spite of several major challenges. The most severe of these was the nation's economic collapse in 2001 that led to violent public protests, threw millions into poverty, and left nearly a quarter of the nation unemployed. Several interim presidents resigned during this period of instability. The economy has recovered strongly since bottoming out in 2002.

The west coast is dominated by the Andes, the largest mountain range in South America. Many parts of this range are volcanically active, and thousands are evacuated whenever one of these volcanoes erupts. 

The Falkland Islands were seized from Great Britain during a brief but bloody war in 1982. Argentina also claims sovereignty over large parts of Antarctica, although many countries (including the US) dispute these claims.

Jorge Luis Borges, internationally renowned for his fantasy fiction, and the poet Leopoldo Lugones both hail from Argentina.

In 2007, the Argentines elected the first female president in the nation's history.

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