Mayans had plumbing too

Everybody gets to share!
http://news.discovery.com/earth/mayan-plumbing-more-than-a-pipe-dream.html

he New World’s earliest known example of engineered water pressure was discovered by two Penn State archaeologists in the Mayan city of Palenque, Mexico.

“Water pressure systems were previously thought to have entered the New World with the arrival of the Spanish,” the researchers wrote in a recent issue of the Journal of Archeological Science. But this water feature predates the arrival of Europeans.

The city of Palenque was built around the year 100 in a constricted area with little land to build on and spread out to. By the time the city’s population hit its zenith during the Classic Maya period from 250-600, Mayans had saved precious urban space by routing streams beneath plazas using aqueduct-like structures. 

The pressurized water feature is called Piedras Bolas Aqueduct, a spring-fed channel on steep terrain.  From the tunnel’s entrance to its outlet 200 feet downhill, the elevation drops about 20 feet and its diameter decreases from 10 feet near the spring to about a half a foot where the water emerges. This combination of a downhill flow and sudden channel restriction pressurized the water, shooting it from the opening to an estimated height of 20 feet.

The researchers don’t know for sure how the Maya used the pressurized water, but they have a couple of ideas. One possibility is they used it to lift water into the nearby residential area for wastewater disposal.Another possibility, and the idea the researchers used as their model, was as a fountain.

A similar feature was found in the city’s palace. 

Multi-tasking in the stone-age

Stone blades found in Sibudu Cave, near South Africa’s Indian Ocean coast, bear traces of compound adhesives that once joined them to wooden hafts to make spears or arrows.

Why is this so cool? Because by systematically replicating the ancient glues, using only Stone Age techniques and ingredients, the researchers discovered that ocher improves the bonding capacity of such natural adhesives as acacia gum. They also learned that those ingredients are highly variable in chemical composition and thus in key characteristics, such as viscosity, that affect the strength of the bond.

To make an effective glue, say the researchers, ancient artisans would have had to adjust their recipes in real time to compensate for unpredictable ingredients, staying mindful of their goal while shifting their focus back and forth among the various steps in the process.

So maybe they were just mad scientists! Mwahahaha!

TV abates loneliness

From The Frontal Cortex (the Blog):

Over at Mind Matters, there's a cool post by Fionnuala Butler and Cynthia Picketton on the benefits of watching television when lonely, which seems to provide the same sort of emotional relief as spending time with real people:

In a recent article published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Jaye Derrick and Shira Gabriel of the University of Buffalo and Kurt Hugenberg of Miami University test what they call the "Social Surrogacy Hypothesis."

The authors theorized that loneliness motivates individuals to seek out relationships, even if those relationships are not real. In a series of experiments, the authors demonstrated that participants were more likely to report watching a favorite TV show when they were feeling lonely and reported being less likely to feel lonely while watching. This preliminary evidence suggests that people spontaneously seek out social surrogates when real interactions are unavailable.

Read more!

Robot love

A baby monkey in the U.K. gets a stuffed surrogate mom with a mechanical heart while her mom recovers from a c-section, so the little DeBrazza baby can lie against the toy and be comforted by her "mom's" heartbeat. Awwww.....

Teams in Italy and the U.K. are currently developing a robot kid. This robot has been programmed to learn how to crawl, walk, an move, using the leading theories today of child development. The best part, the schematics on how to make the kid are open access, meaning ANYONE who has serious robotics training could potentially make and teach this robot kid. They hope this will speed the development of the robot, including developing nerves and sensing skin for the kiddo. My favorite part in the film clip (see link), is when the robot gets "falls asleep."

Better tools

A troop of chimps has learned how to build a better termite trap.

Going back in time, 13,000 year old, blood-stained tools were found in a guy's back yard in Colorado.

Applied anthropology and technology

I have been working on an article about activism in developing nations, namely bringing alternative energies to rural impoverished communities.

Barefoot College (see youtube video), works with women to teach them on a grassroots level how to be solar engineers and run and operate a household solar power system. The college also has a lot of other programs helping women with economic independence and with human rights

The group Portable Light just won an award for their work with the Huichol. Sheila Kennedy at MIT created portable, flexible solar panels, which the Huichol women sewed onto their bags so they had a portable power source.

A third group, Light up the World Foundation, develops and installs LED lights and solar power systems in individual households and businesses.

These are example of opportunities for any anthropologist interested in the politics and accessibility of technology, using alternative energy and skipping the whole "industrial revolution" phase while growing/developing/whatevering a nation, or mostly importantly working with different groups to help provide safe, affordable, less polluting alternatives to kerosene and wood fuel.

And of course, everyone's heard about the One Laptop per Child initiative.

However, an interesting point to bring in: many of these types of groups come in with the idea that by providing light they are helping children receive an education (being able to study at night > children can finish homework > children receive good education). However, in many nations the rudimentary education provided to students is more detrimental than helpful. Children learn how to perform certain skills in an industrialized economy, and yet they don't learn enough to pass their final exams, or there are no jobs for them when they graduate. During all of these years of education, they have also become isolated from their traditional ways of subsistence - farming, hunting, fishing, or whatever. They are stuck between two different economic and cultural systems and cannot function in either one.

So not only is it important to provide children with Internet access and computers and non-toxic light sources, it's also important to make sure they are receiving an education that will serve them as adults.

Documented and Democratized

This article in Newsweek really got me started thinking about this idea of the "Millenial" generation (post 1982, so I JUST missed the cut) as being over-documented, over-exposed, lack of privacy, democratization of information, lack of understanding of copyright and ownership laws, and how technologies like the Internet and cell phones have existed for as long as they've been aware enough to notice (although I still remember my mom being really excited about getting the Internet and me being disappointed because I couldn't find any games).
I know everyone says "this" generation is new and like nothing they've seen before, but "this" generation really IS like nothing we've seen before. It's like the first generation of colonists born in the American Colonies way back when. Sure their parents gave them this new land and brought them up in these new frontiers, but these kids were immersed in it from the moment they set foot outside, and all the while trying to adapt their parents' cultures and customs to this new reality.
I am fascinated to see what this generation, who has no fear or apprehension of technology, who is used to reality TV and learning physical discipline like parkour off the internet, and texting people while hanging out with other people, will come up with on their own, how they adapt their grandparents belief systems to this new way of living. This generation is also a lot more international, and yet not necessarily internationally aware, than previous generations. What exactly will go down? Stay tuned!

networking

Interesting tidbit about how the internet is taking the place of gossiping - or rather forming strong social bonds - around the campfire.