The blog named Let's Get Jiggy with Civil War Dudes! features individual soldiers of the Civil War, highlighting their magnificent names, their accomplishments, and their manly facial hair. Pictured is Cadmus Marcellus Wilcox.

He lived during a time when mustaches could be mustaches, and not simply a means to mask a scrawny hipster’s weak chin and acne scars.

Behold the awesomeness of Napoleon Jackson Tecumseh Dana, Bushrod Johnson, Absalom Baird, John Sappington Marmaduke, and others. All feature links to further information. Link -via Metafilter

The following is an article from the science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research.

Figure1. A reflex hammer. It was used to mechanically stimulate the subject’s skull.

An fMRI Study
by Kai M. Schreiber
Dept. of Physiology, University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

In 1796, Franz Joseph Gall described the cerebral organs that he believed were responsible for certain character traits.1 Since then, thanks to neural imaging studies, we have acquired detailed knowledge of the parts of the brain engaged in many cognitive functions.

So far, however, no one has attempted to locate the cortical seat of ignorance. Ignorance is arguably the most pervasive, mental attribute, and the one that makes us truly human. Unfortunately, ignorance is difficult to measure using common, imaging techniques, because the sophisticated machinery tends to saturate the ignorance system even before any stimuli are presented.

Here, I use functional mechanic resonance imaging, a technique developed specifically for this study, to locate the seat of ignorance in the human cortex.

First, I present evidence that there is a well defined neural ignorance system.

“General Ignorance,” Objectively Determined and Measured

While comparing the scores of random Joe Shmoes on a set of personality measures I had devised over the last few hours, I noticed strong positive correlations between some of them. I discarded the non-correlated ones and came up with the table shown here as Figure 2.

Experts tell me that the positive correlations of these measures must mean that there is some underlying general principle behind them, effected by some physical body. I call this underlying general principle General Ignorance (GI). The following set of numbers demonstrates how simple it is to assign numerical measurements that correspond to General Ignorance:

Figure 2. This set of numbers demonstrates how simple it is to assign numerical measurements that correspond to the qualitative quantity called General Ignorance. For an interpretation of the numbers, consult Figure 3.

It is unnecessary to assign labels to the chart, as the meanings and significance of the numbers are obvious.

Functional Mechanic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)

To overcome the aforementioned problems in imaging ignorance, I employed the following strategy. First, the subject was seated with a friend in the university cafeteria. During that first stage the conversation of the subject was recorded from a neighboring table using an HB pencil and letter-sized blank paper (80g/m). The subject then was brought into the experimental room.

For the fMRI experiment, the subject was seated comfortably and one of two texts—either her original conversation (baseline) or lines from a Shakespeare play (signal) —was read to her. It can be assumed that the subject was non-ignorant regarding her own previous utterances, whereas the Shakespeare quote had a high probability of eliciting an ignorance signal. This was confirmed by the subject’s self-report. [For some details about the procedure, see the accompanying article box called “fMRI on the Go - Try It Yourself!”]

While the subject was listening, her head was mechanically stimulated with short pulses delivered using a reflex hammer (see Figure 1). The locus of stimulation on the skull was varied systematically between trials. The subject’s response (verbal, body movement, threats) to each of these pulses was recorded quantitatively on a scale ranging from one to ten. A stronger response in the signal condition indicates a greater excitability of the ignorance system at this skull location. Figure 2 shows the typical result from the subject.

Figure 3. Activation of cortical areas due to mechanic stimulation of the skull. This image was created by overlaying two-dimensional gaussian patches centered on the locus of stimulation. The amplitude of the gaussians reflects the difference in strength of response between the signal and the baseline condition in each location.

Results

Figure 3 clearly shows that during perception of stimuli selective for the ignorance system, ignorance was most strongly enhanced by mechanical resonance stimulation over the frontal cortex. Therefore I conclude that the frontal lobe is the seat of General Ignorance.

It is interesting to compare GI across groups. Since the ignorance system is located in the tissue of the frontal lobe, its design must be specified in the genome. This could help explain certain phenomena of decision-making that related to politics and economy, which are a mystery otherwise. I have made up preliminary evidence, showing that bureaucrats are relatively more ignorant than Buddhist monks. If this result holds, we would have to drop all efforts to educate bureaucrats, since the effort will be demonstrably futile.

fMRI has proven to be a powerful new experimental technique, allowing the visualization of human cortical processing in vivo. While its temporal and spatial resolution both appear improvable, the simplicity and affordability of the equipment, and the continuing flow of published studies based on its output, easily justify purchase and use of the equipment.

Reference

1. For details, see “Phrenology and the Neurosciences: Contributions of F.J. Gall and J.G. Spurzheim,” Donald D. Simpson, ANZ [Australia and New Zealand] Journal of Surgery, vol. 75, no. 6, June 2005, pp. 475-82.

*****************

fMRI on the Go - Try It Yourself!

The great advantage of the fMRI [functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging] method (as described in the main text) is its flexibility. It could even be used at the bedside with clinical patients. To elicit an fMRI signal from yourself, read the following lines out loud while hitting yourself on the forehead with the open palm. If you feel dizziness or anger, you have successfully stimulated your ignorance circuits.

This double worship,
Where one part does disdain with cause, the other
Insult without all reason, where gentry, title, wisdom,
Cannot conclude but by the yea and no
Of general ignorance,—-it must omit
Real necessities, and give way the while
To unstable slightness: purpose so barr’d,
It follows, Nothing is done to purpose.

—William Shakespeare,
Coriolanus

_____________________

This article is republished with permission from the July-August 2007 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. You can download or purchase back issues of the magazine, or subscribe to receive future issues. Or get a subscription for someone as a gift!

Visit their website for more research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK.

We've seen some amazing photographs of snowflakes taken by microscope cameras. Did you know the first photograph of a single snowflake dates back to 1885? Wilson A. Bentley adapted a microscope to a bellows camera and worked for years before his first successful snowflake photograph.

In 1903, he sent 500 prints of his snowflakes to the Smithsonian, hoping they might be of interest to Secretary Samuel P. Langley. These images are now part of the Smithsonian Institution Archives.

Bentley’s book Snow Crystals, with more than 2,400 snowflake images, was published in 1931. This photomicrograph and more than 5,000 others supported the belief that no two snowflakes are alike, leading scientists to study his work and publish it in numerous scientific articles and magazines.

See Bentley's photographs, which are not on display at any museum, online at The Smithsonian Institution. Link

How can an island in the East River in New York City be forgotten? Ah, because it's a protected nesting area, and therefore off-limits to the public. Still, this particular island has quite a history.

Of all the forgotten and mysterious places in the Five Boroughs of New York City, few have histories as rich and interesting as that of North Brother Island. Situated in the Hell Gate, a particularly treacherous stretch of the East River, North Brother was home to the quarantine hospital that housed Typhoid Mary, was the final destination of the General Slocum during its tragic final voyage, and was the site of an experimental drug treatment program which failed due to corruption. Riverside Hospital, the name of the facility on the island throughout its various incarnations, treated everything from smallpox and leprosy to venereal disease and heroin addiction; after the Second World War, it housed soldiers who were studying under the GI bill. The entirety of the island has been abandoned since 1963; over a dozen buildings remain, in various states of disrepair.

The Kingston Lounge not only has more on the history of the island, but lots of pictures of the buildings in their process of decay. Link -via Breakfast Links

Your knowledge of American literature will be sorely tested in today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss. Eleven Americans have won the Nobel Prize for literature. You get to match their names with a statement that describes him or her. I only got five right, for a score of 45%. I am so ashamed. Link

(YouTube link)

Now I want a horn suit! Not that I could play it like Koni can... Link -via the Presurfer

In May of 2009, the missile-tracking ship General Hoyt S. Vandenberg was hauled out in the Gulf of Mexico. Planted explosives blew holes in the ship's hull, and she sank to the bottom in just a couple of minutes. You can see the process in a time-lapse video. Deliberately sinking a ship sounds like an environmental crime on the surface, but the Vandenberg was carefully prepared: ten tons of asbestos and over 800,000 feet of electrical wiring was removed before she was sunk. The sinking was part of an environmental program to create artificial reefs where sea life -from coral and plankton to game fish- can live and reproduce.

The Vandenberg is certainly not the first ship to be deliberately sunk to create an artificial reef. The waters off the Florida Keys have become the grave site of the Coast Guard cutters Duane and Bibb and the U.S. Navy landing ship Spiegel Grove, and on the sandy bottom 20 or so miles out to sea from Pensacola lies an entire aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Oriskany—the largest ship in the world intentionally sunk as an artificial reef. Dozens of World War II cargo vessels known as Liberty ships have been submerged, or to use the proper jargon, deployed, all along the Gulf, Atlantic, and Pacific coasts.

National Geographic tells us the history of artificial reef programs and how they are used to encourage marine life to flourish. Link

(Image credit: David Doubilet/National Geographic)

The ChumBuddy is a combination sleeping bag, body pillow, and plush shark. It makes for an awesome photo opportunity as well -all your friends will want to try it out! Link

Looking at this list, I realize that the seeds that spawned the cult of the geek were indeed planted in the movies of the '80s, as opposed to the rise of the internet in the '90s.

For those of you who grew up at least in part in the eighties, you know that it wasn’t all about Molly Ringwald and Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Though not all cinematic masterpieces, there were a lot of really fun movies that glorified the geeks of the day.  Here are a few you could pick up for nostalgia’s sake – or especially if you missed the eighties, make sure you’ve seen these if you haven’t!

It's all there -science, space, robotics, computers, and of course, socially awkward teenagers. Link

You don't see it as much today as you did when I was young, but occasionally you'll encounter a woman of a certain age with white hair tinged blue or purple. What were they thinking? Jill Harness has the lowdown on why some elderly women have blue hair and why the phenomenon is "dyeing" out. Link

(Image credit: Flickr user Roland Tanglao)

The bomb squad blew up two World War II hand grenades in Deland, Florida last Tuesday morning.

The man was given the pineapple-style grenade by a neighbor, who used the explosive as a bookend, deputies said.

When deputies arrived in the DeLand neighborhood, they found the man, who told them he had pulled the pin on the grenade, put the pin back and placed the grenade outside.

The man told deputies his neighbor had a second grenade.

That woman told Local 6 the grenades belonged to her deceased husband, who fought in World War II, and were used as bookends for several years.

The explosions left a 2-foot crater in the ground. Link -via Arbroath

Did people actually wear collars like this, or was it a special accessory to wear while sitting for a portrait? Minnesotastan got curious and researched Elizabethan ruffs. They served a purpose: keeping "ring around the collar" away from the shirt. In the 17th century, the upper classes even had special appliances to iron them. The ruffs were starched, dyed, and propped up before they fell out of fashion. Get the whole story and additional links at TYWKIWDBI. Link

Photographer Rafaela Persson has lived in Afghanistan since 2008, and spends time getting to know her subjects.

I had an idea to photograph female drug addicts. Afghanistan is the world’s biggest producer of opium, from which heroin is derived. According to a study made by U.N. Drugs and Crimes Office in 2010, the rate of drug addiction in Afghanistan is twice the global average; Afghans have become the leading consumers of their own opium.  Approximately one million Afghans, or eight percent of the war-shattered country’s total population is suffering from drug addiction, a 75 percent increase since 2005. What is even more alarming is that studies show that 50 percent of Afghanistan’s opium-using parents give the drug to their own children.

Persson shares her photographs and stories in an essay at Camera Obscura. Link -via Nag on the Lake

(Image credit: Rafaela Persson)

The oldest fully wooden churches in the world are also architectural wonders. These are "multi-story, multi-cupola, single-block masterpieces." Built 300 years ago on the Russian Kizhi island, they are called the Church of the Transfiguration and the Church of the Intercession. Read about them and see lots more pictures at Kuriositas. Link

(Image credit: Flickr user Jordi Joan Fabrega)

Since kudzu was imported from Japan, it has grown the cover the southern United States. Now another Asian import is flourishing by eating kudzu. The globular stink bug (Megacopta cribraria), native to China and India, has spread across Georgia and has now been found in Alabama. They also come inside during cold weather, and emit a bad odor when threatened.

University of Georgia entomology Professor Wayne A. Gardner said he's found them 30 stories high, coating the window sills of Atlanta condo high rises, and he has seen them swarming in roadside kudzu patches.

"You smell them when you get out of the truck," he said.

More seriously, the bug likes to munch on plants other than kudzu, including soybeans. It also could be a threat to other legume crops such as peanuts, Gardner said.

In November, Auburn University researchers collected two individual specimens in east Alabama border counties, Cleburne and Cherokee. They now expect them to spread quickly across our kudzu-rich state.

Link -via Fark