Mariel Emrich in Talking Science:

Mosquitoes are as adept at flying in rainstorms as under clear skies. But how is that possible? Wouldn’t rain crush a mosquito to the ground since mosquitoes weigh 50 times less than raindrops?

David Hu, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and biology at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and his graduate research assistant Andrew Dickerson have found that while mosquitoes do get hit by raindrops, they don’t get crushed by them.

Hu discussed their research in a talk at November's APS Division of Fluid Dynamics Meeting that was entitled “How Mosquitoes Fly in the Rain”.

The researchers measured the impact forces of raindrops on both regular mosquitoes and custom-built mosquito mimics. The mimics were made from small Styrofoam spheres of mosquito-like size and mass. They used high-speed video to capture images of the mosquitoes getting hit with raindrops.

Since the bugs fly so slowly (a maximum of 1 meter per second) compared to the drops (which fall between 5 to 9 meters per second), the mosquitoes cannot react quickly enough for avoidance, and most likely cannot sense the imminent collision.

More here.

From Slate:

From The New York Times:

The “higher man” — or as Nietzsche sometimes called him, the “overman” or “Übermensch” — did not succumb to envy or long for the afterlife; rather he willed that his life on earth repeat itself over and over exactly as it was. In later works, Nietzsche wrote with continued brilliance and growing megalomania of his disdain for the common “herd,” the dangers of nihilism and the possibility that the will to power is the “Ur-fact of all history.” He spent his last stricken decade in the care of his mother and then his sister, a fervent anti-Semite who would put him in good standing with the German nationalists he despised. As Nietzsche faltered, his writings began to spread. Small circles of European radicals, literary aristocrats and misfits styled themselves apprentice Übermenschen, ready to fashion the new values the age demanded. The German aesthete Count Harry Kessler plotted to build a Nietzsche memorial in Weimar with a stadium, a temple and a statue; it would, he hoped, effect “the transposition of the personality of Nietzsche into a grand architectural formula” expressing “the unity of lightness, of joy and of power.” But if Nietzsche inspired rapture and devotion, he also puzzled and dismayed. A sickly recluse with impeccable manners, he praised cruelty and strength. He decried Christianity as “a crime against life” even as he claimed that it made man interesting for the first time, and he proposed that everything we know is merely a partial “perspective knowing” even as he composed some of the most categorical remarks ever made: “God is dead”; “It is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world are eternally justified”; “There are no facts, only interpretations.”

From the start, Nietzsche’s American readers were bewitched and bedeviled. His hatred of Christian asceticism, middle-class sentimentality and democratic uplift was an assault on 19th-century America’s apparently most salient characteristics. For that very reason, he attracted young Americans who felt estranged from their culture, and has continued to do so. But today’s inescapable and perplexing Nietzsche is not necessarily the same Nietzsche who inspired readers in the past; and it’s the achievement of Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen’s “American Nietzsche” to show how that is the case.

More here.

Steam Shovel

All silence troubles me.
There’s always something it leaves out:
a treason plotted amongst wisterias
the final explanation of the existence or the inexistence of God
the sound of rats in the rubbish
the clash of propeller and wind at the abandoned airport.
But morning bursts forth at the work site and I hear the noise of the steam shovel.
Men have already awakened and returned to their construction and destruction.
They’re going to build new houses and new tombs.

In the sunny morning, the Beetle comes to a stop in the motel alley.
Once again penis and vagina will try to understand each other
in this world so filled with failed encounters.
The steam shovel shovels and the caterpillar treads advance in the crater open like a flower.
Seen by the conductor’s sleepy eyes as the bus goes down the avenue, the world as spectacle.
.

by Lêdo Ivo
from O rumor da noite
Publisher: Nova Fronteira, Rio de Janeiro, 2000

Martin Filler over at the NYRB blog:

[W]e have the 62-year-old Streep in what many critics deem the crowning achievement of her storied 35-year Hollywood career, as Margaret Thatcher in the starring role of Phyllida Lloyd’s The Iron Lady. But when I watched this strange tour de force of Important Acting, I was uncertain whether I was witnessing a tragedy or a farce.

To be sure, there is a certain piquance in Streep, that inveterate vocal chameleon, impersonating a British prime minister whose own altered accent and lowered tonal production were of considerable import in a class-obsessed country where one’s status is instantly pinpointed by telltale speech indicators. Streep-as-Thatcher overenunciates nearly every phrase in the same way the Iron Lady herself did, in contrast to the clipped-and-swallowed speech patterns of the aristocracy. With her flair for mimicry, the actress is clearly aware of such nuances, and many of her line readings here are hilarious. I laughed out loud when she breathily intoned, apropos some draconian Thatcher budget cut, “YES, the med-cine will be HOSH…”

Nonetheless, thoughts of performers other than Thatcher kept popping into my head as I watched Streep’s latest, grimly fascinating turn—the film traces the British leader from her childhood in the northeastern town of Grantham (where we see young Maggie [Alexandra Roach] doughtily protecting her family’s rationed butter during a World War II bombing raid), to her improbable climb to the top of the class-ridden Conservative Party, to her eleven contentious years in power, and finally to her present-day senescence.

(Via Crooked Timber):

The long-established scholarly project of a specifically literary history has often been called into question in recent decades, whether through challenges to the idea that literature constitutes a separate and distinct strand of culture or through critiques of the ideological and exclusionary bias in the concept of history itself. This is nowhere more the case than in literary studies of Romanticism, a period of Western culture whose intellectual coherence has been debated ever since its inception but which has been subject to particularly strong skepticism since the late 1960s. We have been shown through intricate close readings of its texts, that the “rhetoric of Romanticism,” anticipating late 20th-century poststructuralist theory, undermines belief that language can provide anything other than figures of speech; we have been told that this radical rhetorical shiftiness means that the major poetry of this period can do nothing more than gesture toward self-contradictory meanings, even as it does so with brilliant insight into its own blindness. We have also been told by critics engaged in cultural studies and ideology critique that the ideas of nature, myth, and the symbol-making imagination, unifying concerns of the Romantic movement for critics in the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s, are part and parcel of a self-mystified, politically reactionary “Romantic ideology.” A recent essay by Jerome McGann, who coined the latter phrase, asks bluntly, “Is Romanticism Finished?”

more from Walter L. Reed at nonsite here.

The latest title to appear in English from the late Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño presents itself as the diary of a young German tourist on the Costa Brava one summer in the 1980s. Udo Berger has taken a holiday against his better judgement: it’s not his day job at an electricity company that bothers him, but his reputation as a champion war gamer. To the dismay of his girlfriend, Ingeborg, who would rather lie on the beach and hit the clubs, Udo has brought along his ever-present boards and counters, not to mention a stack of reading for an article he plans to write on strategy in advance of an imminent conference in Paris – all of which means he must maintain contact with Conrad, his mentor back home in Stuttgart. At his best, Bolaño is a terrific writer, but it may deter sceptics that, despite most of the author’s books being short, his most touted novel, the fiendish 2666, is huge, and, for vast stretches, grim as hell. The fourth and longest of its five parts documents in forensically repetitive detail the rapes and murders of dozens of Mexican factory workers. Based on real-life killings that date back to 1993, the victims of which number hundreds, ‘The Part about the Crimes’ dares you not to care – a device that cuts horrifically to the quick of why most of the actual ‘femicides’ remain unsolved. No such ethical weight attaches to readerly boredom in The Third Reich, which was written in 1989, and discovered among Bolaño’s papers after his premature death in 2003.

more from Anthony Cummins at Literary Review here.

From Harvard Magazine:

Sister Suzanne Deliee climbs the steps of the East Harlem brownstone, rings a bell, and is buzzed in. The visiting nurse has come to see Susana Saldivar and her four-week-old son, Xavier. He was born prematurely, at 33 weeks, and as Deliee asks questions, it becomes clear Saldivar is nervous about caring for him properly, even though he is not her first child. Xavier has not yet learned to latch onto his mother’s breast. While keeping him nourished with formula, Saldivar has been encouraging him to suckle. “That’s all you can do—truly,” the nurse reassures her. The conversation turns to how Saldivar plays with her son. “What kind of rattle are you using?” Deliee asks. Saldivar looks bashful and begins to explain in a soft voice. Deliee gently interrupts: “Do you have a bottle of pills? That will work just fine.”

None of Deliee’s words are random or accidental. She is choosing them carefully to educate Saldivar about child development: preemies commonly have trouble learning to suckle; using a rattle is important to Xavier’s cognitive development. She is also assuaging fears: Saldivar doesn’t need an expensive toy for her son; she is doing just fine as a parent, even if Xavier isn’t yet proficient at breastfeeding. Deliee’s communication style typifies the unique and powerful approach to child development crafted and disseminated by the Brazelton Touchpoints Center, part of the Harvard-affiliated Children’s Hospital Boston. Deliee’s employer, Little Sisters of the Assumption Family Health Service, first sent staff members to the center for training in 2006; today, employees say the approach is integral to the agency’s holistic, relationship-oriented view of social services.

More here.

From The Guardian:

Eating two rashers of bacon a day can increase the risk of pancreatic cancer by 19% and the risk goes up if a person eats more, experts have said. Eating 50g of processed meat every day – the equivalent to one sausage or two rashers of bacon – increases the risk by 19%, compared to people who do not eat processed meat at all. For people consuming double this amount of processed meat (100g), the increased risk jumps to 38%, and is 57% for those eating 150g a day. But experts cautioned that the overall risk of pancreatic cancer was relatively low – in the UK, the lifetime risk of developing the disease is one in 77 for men and one in 79 for women. Nevertheless, the disease is deadly – it is frequently diagnosed at an advanced stage and kills 80% of people in under a year. Only 5% of patients are still alive five years after diagnosis.

The latest study, published in the British Journal of Cancer, is from researchers at the respected Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. They examined data from 11 studies, including 6,643 cases of pancreatic cancer. They found inconclusive evidence on the risks of eating red meat overall, compared to eating no red meat. They found a 29% increase in pancreatic cancer risk for men eating 120g per day of red meat but no increased risk among women. This may be because men in the study tended to eat more red meat than women.

More here.

Michael C. Dawson in the Boston Review:

People who live at the bottom of the social order, especially at the bottom of more than one of its hierarchies, are frequently condemned to a life of crippling disadvantage. The existence of such mutually reinforcing power hierarchies calls the social order itself into question as a matter of justice. Political movements need to disrupt these hierarchies to overcome injustice.

In the United States, a healthy black politics is indispensable to that task. Black politics—African Americans’ ability to mobilize, influence policy, demand accountability from government officials, participate in American political discourse, and ultimately offer a democratic alternative to the status quo—have at times formed the leading edge of American democratic and progressive movements; black visions were some of the more robust, egalitarian, and expansive American democratic visions. This status has been lost.

The decline of progressive black politics is apparent in the Occupy actions that have swept the country to protest economic injustice. There has been black participation, and in some areas, such as Chicago, black efforts to mobilize communities have been aided by the presence of a local Occupy movement. But, for the most part, Occupy has been divorced from black politics.

Yet both today’s black communities and black political traditions have much to offer Occupy and progressives at large.

More here.

David Cole in The Nation:

On January 11 it will have been a decade since the first of the men we once called “the worst of the worst” were brought to Guantánamo Bay, a location handpicked by the Bush administration so that it could detain and interrogate terror suspects far from the prying eyes of the law. In the intervening years much has improved at this remote US-controlled enclave in Cuba. Allegations of ongoing torture have ceased; the detainees have access to lawyers and court review; and more than 600 of the 779 men once held there have been released.

But in another way, Guantánamo is a deeper problem today than it ever was. No longer a temporary exception, it has become a permanent fixture in our national firmament. And although at one time we could blame President George W. Bush’s unilateral assertions of unchecked executive power for the abuses there, the continuing problem that is Guantánamo today is shared by all three government branches, and ultimately by all Americans. With President Obama’s signing of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on New Year’s Eve, the prison is sure to be with us—and its prisoners sure to continue in their legal limbo—for the indefinite future.

More here.

Our own Morgan Meis in the Virginia Quarterly Review:

On the morning of April 10, 2010, a ball of flame erupted in the forest outside of Smolensk, Russia. A plane had crashed. Everyone on board was killed. This was a significant fact, especially for Poland. Lech Kaczynski, the president of Poland, was on that plane, along with a significant portion of his cabinet. Ryszard Kaczorowski, the last man to serve as president in exile, was also aboard the plane. He was the man who passed the presidential insignia to Lech Walesa as the first democratically elected president since WWII. The chiefs of staff of the Polish Army, Navy, and Air Force were aboard the plane. The deputy foreign minister was aboard the plane, as well as the head of the National Bank and the head of the National Security Bureau. Important lawmakers and members of parliament were aboard that plane, as well as other top military leaders, bishops, priests, political advisors, and aides. Ninety-six people died.

It was an incredible event, for a country to lose so many of its top civilian and military leaders in a single blow like that. But these people were Polish after all, and in Poland, tragedies have a way of magnifying and expanding through history. The rest of the world was less aware, however, of the background history and thus less aware of just how strange an event that plane crash really was. You see, this was not the first time that the forests around Smolensk had claimed the lives of so many prominent Poles. It had all happened before. In shocking and unexpected ways, history was repeating itself.

More here.

Carl Zimmer in Txchnologist:

Defining life poses a challenge that’s downright philosophical. There’s no ambiguity in looking for water, because we have a clear definition of it. That definition is the same whether you’re on Earth, on Mars, or in intergalactic space. It is the same whether you’re dealing with water as ice, liquid, or vapor. But there is no definition of life that’s universally agreed upon. When Portland State University biologist Radu Popa was working on a book about defining life, he decided to count up all the definitions that scientists have published in books and scientific journals. Some scientists define life as something capable of metabolism. Others make the capacity to evolve the key distinction. Popa gave up counting after about 300 definitions.

Things haven’t gotten much better in the years since Popa published Between Necessity and Probability: Searching for the Definition and Origin of Life in 2004. Scientists have unveiled even more definitions, yet none of them have been widely embraced. But now Edward Trifonov, a biologist at the University of Haifa in Israel, has come forward with a new attempt at defining life, based on a new strategy. Rather than add on yet another definition to the pile, he’s investigating the language that previous scientists have used when they talk about life.

Trifonov acknowledges that each definition of life is different, but there’s an underlying similarity to all of them. “Common sense suggests that, probably, one could arrive to a consensus, if only the authors, some two centuries apart from one another, could be brought together,” he writes in a recent issue of the Journal of Biomolecular Structures and Dynamics (article PDF).

In lieu of resurrecting dead scientists, Trifanov analyzed the linguistic structure of 150 definitions of life, grouping similar words into categories. He found that he could sum up what they all have in common in three words. Life, Trifonov declares, is simply self-reproduction with variations.

More here.

Donald MacIntyre in The Independent:

The Palestinian presence in the largest part of the occupied West Bank – has been, “continuously undermined” by Israel in ways that are “closing the window” on a two-state solution, according to an internal EU report seen by The Independent.

The report, approved by top Brussels officials, argues that EU support, including for a wide range of building projects, is now needed to protect the rights of “ever more isolated” Palestinians in “Area C”, a sector that includes all 124 Jewish settlements – illegal in international law – and which is under direct Israeli control. It comprises 62 per cent of the West Bank, including the “most fertile and resource rich land”.

With the number of Jewish settlers now at more than double the shrinking Palestinian population in the largely rural area, the report warns bluntly that, “if current trends are not stopped and reversed, the establishment of a viable Palestinian state within pre-1967 borders seem more remote than ever”.

The 16-page document is the EU's starkest critique yet of how a combination of house and farm building demolitions; a prohibitive planning regime; relentless settlement expansion; the military's separation barrier; obstacles to free movement; and denial of access to vital natural resources, including land and water, is eroding Palestinian tenure of the large tract of the West Bank on which hopes of a contiguous Palestinian state depend.

More here.

Between his 1932 vision of a sterile dystopia in Brave New World and the 1962 novel Island about a spiritual utopia, the author Aldous Huxley experienced two things; the Hindu religious philosophy known as Vedanta and psychedelic drugs. In Brave New World, people are addicted to Soma, a hallucinogenic that artificially simulates a kind of dull transcendent state, and so makes religion irrelevant. In Island, the Palanese (residents of Pala where the book takes place) ritually use the drug moksha for spiritual and mystical insights. It wasn’t that by the time he was writing Island Huxley no longer believed that civilization was potentially doomed to a homogenized over-indulgent consumer culture, but rather that there was another possibility for human destiny. Soon after writing Brave New World Huxley saw this other opportunity but believed it would take work, a disciplined and rigorous adherence to a spiritual ideal. By the time he got around to writing Island he was convinced there was a faster, less strenuous way to find the higher purpose of human consciousness: mescaline. Huxley had long been interested in the hallucinogenic properties of certain plants but it wasn’t until 1953 that he encountered the work of Humphry Osmond, a British psychiatrist who had set up shop at a mental hospital in Saskatchewan, Canada, and who was interested in the common features of hallucinogenic drug experiences and schizophrenia.

more from Peter Bebergal at The Revealer here.

There are times in life when one’s hand moves, with the autonomous drive of a divining rod, toward a book that is the very thing needed at that precise moment. Needed for what? Needed, one learns within a page or two, to be The Source, the new idea, the clear, firm, blessedly wakening voice that can save you. This is the choice made by the unnamed female narrator of Treasure Island!!!, a novel that chases with a high-held lantern its unpunctuated namesake, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. The first novel by seasoned short-fiction writer Sara Levine, Treasure Island!!! offers a wild, funny, rambunctiously surprising look at what happens when the very thing needed to shake up a life does its job far too well. When a trip to the library allows her searching grip to land on the spine of Treasure Island (“It’s classic. The gold letters say so.”), our girl is hopeless, hapless, and, at twenty-five, burrowing weakly into the sandy soil of postcollegiate living. Through TI, as the locals call the buccaneer-themed Las Vegas casino of the same name, the narrator discovers a way out of the doldrums and into a white-water adventure. Intrinsically, this isn’t a bad impulse, self-diagnosing and then medicating through fiction. Nonetheless, we are soon reminded to use even the mildest drugs with caution.

more from Alison Powell at the LA Review of Books here.