Fossil Friday
Jun. 20th, 2025 06:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

Dilophosaurus. Image stolen from Great Dinosaur Discoveries by Darren Naish, though wikipedia is using a very similiar image under a Creative Commons licence.
If you’re like most people, you probably started yawning as soon as you read the title of this post and saw the video’s thumbnail. And then yawned like two or three times watching it. That’s because a) yawning is contagious, and b) that video is chock-a-block with clips of people and animals yawning.
Yawning is so weird. It’s even a strange word. Yaaaaawwwwwnnnn. And like I mentioned, it’s contagious. In fact, it’s so contagious that even reading or overhearing someone talking about yawning can cause you to yawn. Why the hell do we do this weird thing? Perhaps to cool our brains.
(via the kid should see this)
Tags: video
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Before falling into disrepair, this observatory was part of Chișinău’s Pioneer Palace—a Soviet-era center that ran free after-school programs. Back then, curious students came to learn about the cosmos, guided by dedicated professors. For many youths, it was a first look through a real telescope. The facility stayed open into the early 1990s, even after Moldova gained independence, but eventually closed as public support faded.
Today, the now-abandoned astronomy dome still stands, perched atop a decaying, vandalized building. Gaps in the dome’s metal shell offer sweeping views of the city. Inside, at the structure’s center, a pedestal covered in graffiti marks where a telescope once stood. A rusted circular track at the base of the dome still hints at the mechanism that once allowed it to rotate.
Not many people come up here these days, but those who do tend to leave their mark. Urban explorers, the occasional YouTuber, and groups of local teenagers looking for a place to hang out all pass through. For former Pioneers, returning to the dome might stir memories—red scarves, stargazing sessions, and a different time.
In 1942 the Second World War was in full swing, the United States having joined the conflict. Since North Africa lies at the northern edge of the Sahara Desert, combat would occur under desert conditions, which in turn implied that the soldiers must be trained for such conditions. Thus General George S. Patton, Jr., then commander of Fort Benning in Georgia, was ordered by Lt. General Lesley McNair, commander of Army Ground Forces, to locate, establish, and command a center for training in desert warfare.
Patton recognized that the Mojave Desert not only would it make a good training ground for North Africa, it also had good rail access, which would be critical for moving thousands of soldiers and their equipment.
What became the Desert Training Center (DTC) ultimately stretched across an enormous swath of the Mojave, including most of eastern California, the southern tip of Nevada, and extending east of the Colorado River into Arizona. The area included about a dozen camps over its existence, as well as some support facilities such as rail terminals. The camps consisted of tent cities with no permanent buildings. There were few permanent structures of any kind, some religious chapels and airstrips being the most important exceptions. Moreover, the Palen maneuver area, around Palen Pass in the central part of the Mojave, was the site of large-scale troop maneuvers, where both armor and infantry units engaged in simulated combat.
Because of their lack of permanent structures, little is left of the camps today. Grid patterns of dirt roads can be seen on air and satellite photos, but on the ground are often washed out and impassible. The most prominent features on the ground are lines of rocks, extending along paths and roads, and encircling bushes and what were probably the sites of flagpoles.
Patton only commanded the DTC for three months before being transferred to plan the North Africa invasion itself. The camps remained in operation for almost two years, being shut down in May 1944 after they'd served their purpose. Almost one million soldiers were trained over that two-year period, but less than half served in North Africa, the rest being posted to other theaters.
I think I mentioned (did I?) that my research position at Former Workplace was terminated some while ago due to Internal Upheavals.
Well, thinks I, I still have research connection with Esteemed Academic Institution where I did my PhD and professional qualification, providing me with a) access to a research library and b) an institutional email address.
This connection was renewed some 5 years ago and comes up for renewal in the autumn, and being a forethoughtful hedjog I thought I would start mentioning this to person I know best in the department with which I am associated.
And, dammit, they have gone and changed the rules.
Some years ago (in fact before my last renewal but I guess institutional processes move slowly) there was a massive hoohah when somebody who also had some honorary connection with Esteemed Academic Institution turned out to be using it to bring EAI into disrepute by making it seem as though it had given official imprimatur to rather dodgy intellectual activities they were up to. Plus, there was a certain degree of mystery, or at least, lack of institutional memory, as to how person had even obtained this honorary position in the first place. (Or at least, nobody was copping to knowing.)
So, they are tightening up the rules so that you have to have much more of a formal position - e.g. be doing a collaborative project with somebody in the department - to be assigned honorary research status. So alas, am no longer eligible.
*Mutters obscenities*
Am wondering whether I can find friends in other institutions who might provide some similar position according me library access....
Pleased to say that MP (Vikki Slade, Liberal) voted in favour of the bill, as she'd promised when I wrote to her about it.
(Our previous MP, Conservative, - but not necessarily representative of the rest of the party - did not always vote to match what his letters implied.)
My heath is fine at present (expect when I get sciatica or break something), but I'm terrified of dementia (the bill doesn't cover that, but hopefully it may one day extend to it, such that if wishes are expressed in a proper power of Attorney while a person is still of sound mind).
I wrote my POA several years ago, and made my wishes clear. If I ever can't recognise my family, then that person is no longer a person I wish to be. And I certainly don't want my family to live with that kind of pain or to spend their time caring (or paying for care for) someone who can't appreciate it.
I want my money to go to my grandchildren and not on end of life care for me.