Science

From The Guardian: "He is a better writer than you think," Malcolm Lowry once said of Guy de Maupassant. This comment, made to David Markson, indicates the conundrum Maupassant presents to readers. A hugely influential writer of short stories, the sheer mass of his extremely uneven body of work – 300 stories, 200 articles, six novels, two plays, and three travel books churned out between 1880 and 1891 – can obscure his genius like clouds around an alp. Yet while many of those 300 stories fail to rise beyond the anecdotal, nearly a quarter are very good, and within them stands a core of indisputable classics. It shouldn't be doubted that Maupassant is one of the most important short-story writers to have lived. It was to the detriment of Maupassant's work – although not his bank balance – that his career coincided with a demand from French newspapers for stories of around 1-2,000 words. Jostling with news and faits divers, these stories were by necessity laconic and attention-grabbing, and Maupassant, whose severe economy was a model for Hemingway, had a great facility for producing them. The irony, however, is that Maupassant's best works are much longer. The spareness, learned in his youth from the poet Louis Bouilhet, is still there – as in the opening of "Hautot & Son" (1889), where, as Sean O'Faolain writes, "the scene is brilliantly and swiftly painted, with three lines for the countryside and six for the sportsmen" – but the stories' scope helps avoid the glibness that can mar his shorter work. When Bouilhet died another family friend, Gustave Flaubert, took on Maupassant's literary education, counselling his impatient charge to hold off from publishing until he was ready (although from 1875 several stories crept into print under pseudonyms). The fruit of this long labour was "Boule de Suif", which Flaubert lived just long enough to read and proclaim a masterpiece. ...It's certainly difficult to find much meaning in Maupassant's final years, which were as lurid as any plot he ever concocted. By 1885 he was suffering memory lapses and eye problems, and would sometimes see his double sitting at his desk. These were early symptoms of the syphilis he most probably contracted during his hedonistic twenties (a period he recreates in an unusually touching story of 1890, "Mouche"). By late 1891 he was convinced his brain was pouring from his nose and mouth, and thought his urine was made of diamonds. "My mind", he told a friend, "is following dark valleys". He slit his throat in Cannes on New Year's Day, 1892, and spent the last 18 months of his life in a Parisian asylum. "M Maupassant is reverting to the animal", his doctor wrote a few days before his death, aged 42. More here.

Kathleen Norris in The New York Times: This is a daring and urgent book, written after the author learned he had a rare, incurable and unpredictable cancer. But it is not a conventional memoir of illness and treatment. Beyond informing us that he received his dire news in a “curt voice mail message,” Christian Wiman says very little about his experience of the medical world. He is after bigger game. More than any other contemporary book I know, “My Bright Abyss” reveals what it can mean to experience St. Benedict’s admonition to keep death daily before your eyes. ...In reflecting on the meaning of Christ’s passion for his own life, Wiman finds that it reveals that “the absolutely solitary and singular nature of extreme human pain is an illusion.” It is the resolutely incarnational nature of the religion that draws him in. “I am, such as I am, a Christian,” he writes, “because I can feel God only through physical existence, can feel his love only in the love of other people.” His love for his wife and children, he realizes, is both human and entirely sacred. And here the poet comes to the fore, insisting on the right to embrace contradiction without shame. “I believe in absolute truth and absolute contingency, at the same time. And I believe that Christ is the seam soldering together these wholes that our half vision — and our entire clock-bound, logic-locked way of life — shapes as polarities.” This pithy and passionate book is not easy, but it is rewarding. Wiman’s finely honed language can be vivid and engaging. He describes his childhood home as “a flat little sandblasted town in West Texas: pump jacks and pickup trucks, . . . a dying strip, a lively dump, and above it all a huge blue and boundless void” that he admits, with typical acuity, “I never really noticed until I left, when it began to expand alarmingly inside of me.” He exhibits a poet’s concern for precision, writing, for example, that “the sick person becomes very adept at distinguishing between compassion and pity. Compassion is someone else’s suffering flaring in your own nerves. Pity is a projection of, a lament for, the self.”  This is, above all, a book about experience, and about seeking a language that is adequate for both the fiery moments of inspiration and the “fireless life” in which we spend most of our days. It is a testament to the human ability to respond to grace, even at times of great suffering, and to resolve to live and love more fully even as death draws near. More here.

Two of Alaska's most active volcanoes -- Pavlof and Cleveland -- are currently erupting. At the time of this post, their activity continues at low levels, but energetic explosions could occur without warning. Located close to the western end of the Alaska Peninsula, Pavlof is one of the most active volcanoes in the Aleutian arc, having erupted more than 40 times since the late 1700's.

Or, how to get smashed with class So you're about to order a bottle of tasty white wine! Do you want dry, very dry, or off-dry? And what ratio of melon-ness to butterscotch-ness do you want? What about saltiness? Stonefruit-ness? If you don't know, your waiter will look at you through eyes swollen with pity; your date will excuse him/herself and climb for freedom through a bathroom window; you will be left alone, with only a middling bottle by your side, a laughable semblance of comfort. This infographic can help! Graphic designer Sean Seidell, who previously made this equally delicious infographic overview of chocolate flavors, aggregated wine reviews from sites like Wine Spectator to organize 20 different types of wine. The wines are arranged by 20 different flavors, like "honey" and "herbal," then more generally by five categories: very dry, dry, off-dry, semi-sweet, and sweet. Dryness or sweetness, of course, is as much a result of the winemaker's technique as it is of the source grape varietal, but the chart shows the characteristics of each varietal's most popular style. "One of the things I enjoyed most about this project was researching a wine and then going out to purchase a bottle of that wine," Seidell wrote in an email to Popular Science. "First I would try the wine without looking at my notes and try to sort out the flavors. I'd come up with maybe four flavors at most on my own. Then I would look at my research notes and keep those flavors in mind as I took another sip. Sauvignon Blanc, for example, had what appeared to be an impossible number of flavors, but as I drank it I found that it really did contain what my research said it did: Very Dry with lots of Citrus, Acid, Melon, and Stonefruit flavors alongside lighter Honey, Floral, Creamy, and Mineral flavors." You'll know exactly what you want for a nice drink. (Or to get trashed on. Whichever.)

(Phys.org) —Computer simulations of galaxies growing over billions of years have revealed a likely scenario for how they feed: a cosmic version of swirly straws.

For the first time, scientists working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have demonstrated a new type of lens that bends and focuses ultraviolet (UV) light in such an unusual way that it can create ghostly, 3D images of objects that float in free space. The easy-to-build lens could lead to improved photolithography, nanoscale manipulation and manufacturing, and even high-resolution three-dimensional imaging, as well as a number of as-yet-unimagined applications in a diverse range of fields.

Google has become deeply involved in a series of projects to build and operate wireless networks in emerging markets including sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, a report said Friday.

Research conducted at Curtin University in Perth has enabled significant increases in image quality in a widely used 3D printing technique that is more than 100 years old.

As many of you know, here in the lab we have a thing for rare stuff out of the Niobrara chalk. We've found the only articulated skeleton of Protosphyraena, described the giant filter-feeder Bonnerichthys, we make a habit of collecting excellent cephalopod mouthparts like Spinaptychus and Rugaptychus, and even discovered the only open coiled ammonite out of the whole formation. So when it comes to new giant coelacanths out of Kansas, yeah we're on that too!The second specimen (left) with a cast of the left lower jaw of the first specimenThe first specimen of Megalocoelacanthus from Kansas was prepared by our lab in 2005. It was given the name "mystery fish" since the bones looked nothing like what we usually work with. The bone quality was pretty nice, and comprised a nearly complete skull. It was eventually identified by Dr. Ken Carpenter (at the Denver Museum at the time) as a coelacanth, and the specimen went off to a repository.Sculpting a body with the Vienna Latimeria specimen blown up to sizeWhile preparing and molding the specimen, I discovered a second specimen in 2007 much higher in the chalk consisting of a left lower jaw. As far as we know, these are the only two specimens of Megalocoelacanthus ever discovered in 150 years of paleontological prospecting in the entire Niobrara.Side fiew of the unpainted and almost finished prototypeFrom past projects, it is obvious that we are the only people crazy enough to do 3d restorations of Kansas fish. We had disarticulated casts of the whole head of this giant coelacanth, so why not attempt a restoration?No teeth, but it could nearly swallow me whole with that mawWell, here's our first stab at it. In the future we're going to have to un-flatten the mandibles so they better fit the floor of the mouth. One thing is for sure though: it's still a strange fish even when all put together.

Phylogeny vs Time Oceanic Upwelling Locales Mosasaur Fossil LocalesPhysical Drivers of Mosasaur EvolutionAuthors:1. Michael J. Polcyn (a)2. Louis L. Jacobs (a)3. Ricardo Araújo (a, b)4. Anne S. Schulp (c, d)5. Octávio Mateus (b, e)Affiliations:a. Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas 75275, USAb. Museu da Lourinhã Rua João Luis de Moura, 95. 2530–158 Lourinhã, Portugalc. Natuurhistorisch Museum Maastricht, de Bosquetplein 6–7, NL-6211 KJ Maastricht, The Netherlandsd. Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlandse. Departamento de Ciências da Terra, FCT, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, PortugalAbstract:Mosasaurs are marine squamates with a 32.5 million-year history from their appearance at 98 Ma to their extinction at the K-Pg boundary (65.5 Ma). Using a database of 43 generic and 94 species-level taxa, we compare the taxonomic diversity and patterns of morphological disparity in mosasaurs with sea level, sea surface temperature, and stable carbon isotope curves for the Upper Cretaceous to explore factors that may have influenced their evolution. No single factor unambiguously accounts for all radiations, diversification, and extinctions; however, the broader patterns of taxonomic diversification and morphological disparity point to niche differentiation in a “fishing up” scenario under the influence of “bottom-up” selective pressures. The most likely driving force in mosasaur evolution was high productivity in the Late Cretaceous, driven by tectonically controlled sea levels and climatically controlled ocean stratification and nutrient delivery. When productivity collapsed at the end of the Cretaceous, coincident with bolide impact, mosasaurs became extinct.