Mike DiCuccio

@dicuccio.bsky.social

My son is my clan leader. I am nobody. Genomics. Medicine. Computational biology. Fly fishing. Photography.

15,000 years ago, in one of the the earliest settled communities in the world, a child collected fine clay from the slow-moving river by her home. She then committed an act familiar to all inveterate play-doh enthusiasts; rolling and and pinching the squishy clay into tiny round balls.

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"You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive." --James Baldwin

Bone forks in China have been found dating to the Bronze Age (~2000 BC), but these were for cooking. PERSONAL FORKS for eating weren't in wide-spread use until the 4th century AD, in the Byzantine Empire. They didn't become popular in Western Europe until & maybe *because of* ... PASTA.

Sasanian silver fork (4th century) in a display case.  It's a two tined fork and spoon of similar minmally ornamented but elegantly made silver utensils.
CREDIT:  Iroony, Wikimedia

Twice a year, Hawai'i experiences a strange moment where the sun appears to be exactly overhead & anything that is completely vertical casts no shadow. Let's learn about Lāhainā Noon, subsolar points & 'Kau ka lā i ka lolo', meaning "the sun rests on the brains."

From a Reddit forum, a photo of a can of coconut milk with a blue label, papyrus text and a flip-top, on a sidewalk.  It seems to hover because there's no visible shadow.  The pavement is sort of unevenly colored, with bright spots, and the grass along it is green and lush.