bookofjoe

Aam vorta

Want.

Above, aam vorta, a Bengali snack — raw mango anointed with masala, chile, mustard oil and kasundi (fermented mustard-seed paste).

You can get your own at Fuskahouse, a food cart parked on 37th Avenue between 73rd and 74th Streets, in Jackson Heights in New York City.

Read the New York Times story — and don't forget the associated slide show, from which the image up top is taken — here.

Internet Database of Periodic Tables

From the website: "There are thousands of periodic tables in web space, but there is only one comprehensive database of periodic tables & periodic system formulations."

Fair warning: there goes the day.

It's elemental.

"If you know of an interesting periodic table that is missing, please contact the database curator, Dr. Mark R. Leach: 

mark@meta-synthesis.com

Belt Chair

Glasgow-based artist Jim Lambie handcrafted the belts that form this chair out of steel and acrylic paint.

How to fold a fitted sheet in 30 seconds

Watch and learn.

KFC Extra Crispy Sunscreen — "Smells like chicken"

Alas, it failed to sell on eBay.

Perhaps $125 was a bit steep.

Caterpillars "see" colors with their skin

From the New York Times:

Peppered moth caterpillars live across the Northern Hemisphere, from the forests of China to the backyards of North America.

But if you've never seen one, don't feel bad: They're experts at blending in.

Each caterpillar mimics the twig it perches on, straightening its knobbly body into a stick-like shape.

It also changes its hue to match the twig's color, whether birch white, willow green, or dark oak brown.

They're so good at this, in fact, that they can do it blindfolded — literally.

According to a paper published in Communications Biology in early August, the caterpillars sense the color of their surroundings not only with their eyes, but also with their skin.

While other animals, including cuttlefish and lizards, have similar abilities, this is "the most complete demonstration so far that color change can be controlled by cells outside the eyes," said Martin Stevens, a professor of sensory and evolutionary ecology at the University of Exeter.

Dr. Stevens, who was not involved in the study, added that the exact mechanism remains a mystery.

The adult peppered moth is famous for a completely different color journey; After soot from the Industrial Revolution darkened tree bark in Britain, peppered moths there evolved to be darker, too.

Ilik Saccheri, a professor of ecological genetics at the University of Liverpool and an author of the new paper, normally studies the adult moth.

This requires keeping a lot of caterpillars around.

Years of observation sparked his curiosity about their color-changing abilities, which happen individually and in a matter of minutes rather than over generations.

Each caterpillar hatches tiny and black, and in its early days is blown around by the wind.

Once it falls on a plant, it must camouflage itself to avoid being spotted by hungry birds.

This process, which involves producing new pigments, plays out over a period of days or weeks.

"I was a bit disbelieving that they could change that accurately only using their eyes," which are quite simple at the larval stage, Dr. Saccheri said.

Amy Eacock, a graduate student in Dr. Saccheri's lab at the time of the study, and another of the paper's authors, decided to investigate.

First, she tested the caterpillars' eyes for light-sensitive proteins called opsins.

"We did the skin as kind of a negative control," said Dr. Eacock, who is now at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Germany. "But then we found they were expressed in the skin as highly as they were in the head."

That's when she suggested blindfolding the caterpillars.

The researchers could cover their eyes, place them on different-colored dowels, and see if they still changed to match.

"I thought it was kind of a crazy idea," Dr. Saccheri said. The blindfolding itself was a difficult endeavor, involving black paint, a "tiny, tiny paintbrush," a microscope and lots of patience, Dr. Eacock said.

Caterpillars molt several times over their lives, which required that they be blindfolded again frequently. (This also meant that when the experiment was over, the research subjects got their eyesight back.)

But Dr. Eacock persisted, eventually testing more than 300 caterpillars.

First, they tried green and brown dowels.

For later groups, the researchers used black and white dowels.

Over and over again, the blindfolded caterpillars successfully changed color to blend in.

The team even placed some caterpillars on striped dowels, and "they did go stripey," Dr. Eacock said, although the sample size for that experiment was too small to include in the published work.

In another test, older caterpillars with covered eyes were given a choice of dowel colors, and reliably climbed onto the one that they already matched. (Because it takes a caterpillar many days and a lot of energy to change color, reverse-engineering the camouflage in this way is often more efficient.)

Many questions remain, including exactly how the caterpillars receive and use the color information, and whether the opsins are actually involved in the process.

But the behavior alone impressed the researchers.

Dr. Eacock said: "I remember turning around to Ilik one day and being like, 'You know what? The caterpillars are cooler than the moths.'"

Dr. Saccheri agreed. "They’re pretty amazing," he said.

Comments on bookofjoe — Still broken after all* these years

Below, in its entirety, my July 5, 2013 post, headlined "Comments on bookofjoe."

My Comments section is dysfunctional.

Constant readers know this to be the case.

Nevertheless, it's annoying and vexing, both to you and to me.

It's been this way since the beginning — in 2004.

People spend a lot of time composing a comment, post it, and it never appears.

Sometimes five or ten times.

Still no comment.

Details from a typical example from earlier today are pictured above and below.

FunFact: I – the owner and proprietor of bookofjoe — have been unable to post a comment on my own blog for the past 4-5 months.

I fill out the comment form just like you and click "Post," it says "Comment Posted" — but the comment never appears.

Only two days ago did I succeed in posting a comment.

In the interim when I've had the energy I've gone back to the post I wanted to comment on and added my comment at the end as an update, a poor substitute on many levels.

Here's the thing: I still don't know what I did differently that caused my comment of two days ago to finally post.

Aaarrrggghhh.

Anyway, to reiterate the policy I've had in place from the get-go: my Comments section is open to all, there is no pre-screening or even post-comment screening: the first time I see a comment is when you see it, at the top of the sidebar on my home page.

As best I can tell, I am pretty much unique nowadays in this respect, not requiring commenters to register or have their comments moderated or whatnot before appearing.

Most big-time blogs like Boing Boing and its ilk long ago abandoned open commenting because of the nastiness of what comes in unexpurgated and unedited.

And yes, sometimes badness appears in my Comments section, and spam as well.

But you know what?

That's the price of openness.

I may not like what you have to say; in fact, I may hate it — and you for saying it.

But I'll be darned if I'm going to delete your mean-spirited or nasty remarks because they hurt me.

That's not what freedom means to me.

Deal with it.

*6+

Galaxy Magazine Archives Now Online

355 separate issues, ranging from 1950 to 1976.

Free, the way we like it.

Fair warning: there goes your world.

[via the Verge]

Liberation of Paris Victory Parade Dress (worn August 26, 1944)

Marguerite Sabaut made this red, white, and blue dress and wore it during the celebratory victory parade down the Champs-Élysées on August 26, 1944, the day after Paris was liberated.

In the collection of the Musée de la Libération de Paris-Musée du Général Leclerc-Musée Jean Moulin.

[via the New York Times]

Wool Dryer Balls

From the website:

Eliminate the need for pesky fabric softeners and toxic dryer sheets with the Wool Dryer Ball.

 

These easy-to-use dryer balls are designed to shorten drying time, naturally soften laundry, and save money.

 

Perfect for clothes of babies, toddlers, and anyone with sensitive skin.

Set of 6: $14.99 (dryer not included).

Experts' Experts: How often should you change your sheets?

[CFU/Sq.In.: (Bacterial) colony-forming units/square inch]

From Bustle:

Autumn is fast approaching, which means your cozy duvet will be making a triumphant return.

While there's nothing like curling up in your bed on crisp fall nights, it also brings up the age-old question of how often should you change your bed sheets.

It depends on your sleep regimen, from how much you move in your sleep to your level of clothing when you hop between the sheets.

You also need to consider whether you're sleeping by yourself or sharing the bed with a person, pet, or both.

Dead skin cells, body oils, drool, and dust mites are just some of the detritus that accumulate in your sheets over time.

If you have acne, it could be something to do with your bed sheets.

Dermatologist Whitney Bowe said not changing your sheets frequently "can disrupt your skin's ecosystem" — otherwise known as its microbiome — due to bacteria accumulating on your pillowcase.

So, what's the optimum amount of time to wait before washing your sheets?

Most experts say to do so on at least a weekly basis.

Good Housekeeping suggests that "at least once every two weeks" is fine, but also notes that if you tend to sweat a lot in bed, "you should increase this to once weekly."

This also goes for people with allergies like hay fever as pollen can accumulate quickly in season.

Dust mites also factor into this, as they can provoke allergy symptoms like a runny nose, watery eyes, sneezing, and general discomfort that makes it hard to get a good night's sleep.

One study of pillows found from 4-16 different species of fungus in individual pillows, among 50 different species isolated.

The American Academy of Dermatology suggests changing your pillow cases two to three times a week.

The Mandelbrot Set

A wonderful explication of what it is and how it came to be discovered.

13-year-old Elvis Presley checked out "Courageous Heart" from the library in 1948

[via Retronaut]

iNaturalist

The New York Times has a new weekly feature called "Tech We're Using" for which various reporters are interviewed to learn what technology they find particularly useful and/or indispensable.

Katie Thomas, who covers health care for the paper, in the course of her interview was asked "Outside of work, what tech product are you obsessed with?"

Her reply is below.

iNaturalist is free, the way we like it.

What is it?

Answer here this time tomorrow.

Hint: bigger than a bread box.

Another: no moving parts.

A third: inedible.