How the American bird we know as turkey got the moniker ‘turkey’ and not _huexoloti_ (Aztec) or _guajolote_ (Mexican)-authentic early American names for American turkeys-has much to do with the fact that Turkey was the center of the world at the time Christian Europeans began taking a few baby steps toward finding an alternative route to India. [snip] When corn, tobacco sprouts, and, of course, our _huexoloti_ arrived in the heart of the thriving and vibrant Ottoman Empire-seated in what we now know as Turkey-they came into the hands of probably the most advanced farmers and husbandmen in the world. Turkish farmers had previously seen the nearest cousins of the _huexoloti_ from Asia (pheasants) and from Africa (Guinea fowl). But these birds were skinny runts compared to the majestic _huexoloti_. Making use of sophisticated growing and seeding techniques, savvy Turkish farmers within a few short years had produced surplus quantities of corn and tobacco-enough to export to other parts of the world. And with smart breeding and feeding practices they also grew vast flocks of big breasted _huexoloti_. Within the space of just twenty years or so from the time these […]
WASHINGTON - America has never seen anything quite like this: The president and president-elect acting like co-presidents, consulting and cooperating on the day’s biggest crises. ‘It’s pretty unusual,’ said George Edwards, a presidential expert at Texas A&M University, in College Station. What Princeton University professor Julian Zelizer calls ‘the split-screen presidency’ is the result of several historic forces converging this fall: * The 24-7 nature of the global economy, which demands timely reaction. * Incoming and outgoing presidents who have personal and political reasons to show that they can manage a crisis. * A president-elect, Barack Obama, who ‘believes in strong government and wants to get things under way immediately,’ said William Leuchtenburg, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor who’s written extensively about the presidency. * A lame-duck president, George W. Bush, who’s leaving office voluntarily. ‘Bush was not defeated. That makes for an easier relationship,’ Leutchtenburg said. This transition lacks the formality - and the coolness - of the last two transfers of power that occurred during tough economic times, the 1980-81 change […]
WASHINGTON — US officials on Tuesday opened a new front to fight the financial crisis with two new programmes aimed at boosting lending to consumers and small businesses and supporting the market for mortgage-backed securities. The US Treasury said that it would allocate $20bn to back a new lending facility for the consumer asset-backed securities market, an important source of liquidity for institutions that provide small business, auto and student loans and which has essentially shut down during the credit crunch. The Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility will be operated by the Federal Reserve, which will extend up to $200bn in non-recourse loans to holders of ABS backed by loans that have been newly or recently originated. The $20bn contribution from the Treasury will come from its $700bn Troubled Asset Relief Program. In addition, the Fed said it would buy up to $100bn of debt from mortgage financiers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks through a series of competitive auctions starting next week. It will also buy up to $500bn mortgage-backed securities backed by those entities, hopefully by the end of the year. ‘This action is being taken to reduce […]
We all came from hermaphrodites, organisms with both male and female reproductive organs. And though the origin traces back more than 100 million years, biologists have scratched their heads over how and why the separate male and female sexes evolved. Now, research on wild strawberry plants is providing evidence for such a transition and the emergence of sex, at least in plants. And the results, which are detailed in the December issue of the journal Heredity, likely apply to animals like us, the researchers say. The study showed that two genes located at different spots on a chromosome can cast strawberry offspring as a single sex, a hermaphrodite or a neuter (neither male nor female, and essentially sterile). The researchers suspect the two genes could be responsible for one of the earliest stages of the transition from asexual to sexual beings. ‘All of the animals and plants that are bi-sexual, or have two sexes, are theorized to have evolved according to a particular set of steps,’ said researcher Kim Lewers, a plant geneticist at the USDA’s Genetic Improvement of Fruits and Vegetables Lab in Maryland. ‘Until now, no example had been found of the very earliest steps. […]
A researcher at Pennsylvania State University, Stephan Schuster, said in the journal Nature last week that he might be able to regenerate a mammoth from ancient DNA for just $10 million. Given that Chicago’s Field Museum, with the help of McDonald’s and Walt Disney, recently paid $8.36 million for an especially fine Tyrannosaurus rex fossil, Dr. Schuster should be able to sell a pack of live mammoths to zoo managers around the world. For making the past come alive, a mammoth is a good start, but it’s just a hairy elephant. What other extinct species would be good to have around again? Herein, a wish list. Because we are so interested in ourselves, the first two resurrected species might be the two close cousins whom our ancestors drove to extinction: THE NEANDERTHAL. This species and modern humans split apart some 500,000 years ago, and the Neanderthal adapted to the ice age climate that gripped its European homeland. Scientists in Germany are expected to report soon that they have decoded the full genome. No one knows if Neanderthals could speak. A living one would answer that question and many others. THE ‘HOBBIT.’ Remains of these downsized humans, […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
