Two Stories to Take Your Mind Off Things

Are you nervous about the upcoming week in our democracy, what with the latest news of Mafia Mulligan's illegalities, the election in Georgia on January 5, and what will happen on January 6 (both in the streets and in Congress)? 

I am. 

But instead of talking about that because so many other people have covered it, I have two cool things to share.

When ruminants consume seaweed, it can prevent them from releasing methane. Two different species of the plant Asparagopsis can be dried, powdered, and added to feed and (as I imagine it) essentially act like bovine Beano. Constituting just .2% of an animal's feed, the seaweed reduces its methane output by 98%, according to field trials. It may also allow farmers to use less feed, and even result in more milk production. Growing the seaweed can help sequester carbon and reduce ocean acidification. "The amount of methane from livestock production alone is about the equivalent of the emissions from about 650 million cars." Several companies are working on developing products based on Asparagopsis. (from the Washington Post)

I learned somewhere along the way that the Taino, the indigenous people of Hispaniola, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, were completely wiped out by the Spanish through murder, abuse, and disease after Columbus arrived. People from those islands learned the same thing from schooling, it sounds like, though their grandparents sometimes told them otherwise. But recent DNA research on ancient skeletons found that "about 14% of people's ancestry in Puerto Rico can be traced back to the Taino, 4% in Cuba, and 6% in the Domincan Republic." The researchers also found that the Taino arrived in the Caribbean islands in two waves, the first wave up to 3,000 years ago from the earliest populations somewhere in Central and South America. The second wave was 2,500–2,000 years ago from coastal areas of present-day Colombia and Venezuela. One remnant of the Taino language is the word "hurricane" from hurakán. Most surprising of all is that the number of people of Taino descent may be higher today (even much higher) than it was when they were colonized in the 15th century. (from the New York Times)

Taino ceramic vessels from eastern Hispaniola, c. A.D. 1400. From Leiden University (photo by Menno Hoogland).