Wednesday's Cool Things

[tamaranth]

1. Does anyone know if low temperatures make one sleepier?

2. From ellen_kushner: The Testament of Solomon (74. And the second said: "I am called Barsafael, and I cause those who are subject to my hour to feel the pain of migraine. If only I hear the words, 'Gabriel, imprison Barsafael,' at once I retreat.")

3. Interviewing fastfwd this evening (trains permitting) at the BSFA open evening.

4. My tenants were going to move out. Now they've changed their minds. Yay!

5. Medieval people didn't look like us -- marked differences in skull shape and prominence of features. (Now can someone model what they're on about?)

Comments

[fastfwd.livejournal.com]

1) Depends on how low. If they're low enough to freeze to death, yes. A slight chill in the air, not usually. Too-warm rooms will make you sleepier.

2. Very cool.

3. I hope the trains permit.

4. If you're happy, I'm happy.:)

4. As I understand it, they were shorter, too. I can remember throughout my childhood being told that suits of armour would be too small for today's adults. More uncertain food supply, less balanced diet, and "medical care" that wasn't actually medical care. Or so I've heard. I'm not actually old enough to remember.:)

[del-c.livejournal.com]

The suits of armour story is due to a combination of things, namely:

• suits of armour that actually were too small for typical adults, on account of being made for typical teenagers,
  
  
• suits of armour that actually were too small for typical adults, on account of being made for one of the large minority of non-typical adults (we exist, you know), and finally
  
  
• suits of armour stacked up by themselves for display being considerably shorter than suits of armour with a person inside :-)

[ajshepherd.livejournal.com]

Low temperatures make it harder to leave the comfort of your cosy warm bed, that's for sure!

[easterbunny.livejournal.com]

Re: 4) - I wonder what caused the change? Increasing travel and immigration patterns have meant more gene pool swirling around, but is that enough to make features less prominent for the whole species?

[reddragdiva]

Better nutrition and health care would be enough. The human body is an evolved machine designed to cope adequately with crappy input; modern nutrition recommendations take it way outside what it was evolved to cope with. There isn't an ideal of nutrition per se that we were designed for.

[easterbunny.livejournal.com]

But why would poor nutrition or health care make for bigger chins?

[reddragdiva]

Dunno! But organisms will grow in all sorts of ways differently with good nutrition than living on scraps.

Wisdom teeth are a good example. They used to be a good idea, because by adolescence you could really do with some spares. Now they're a problem because more people have full jaws.

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

is this a random example? 'cause if not, it would explain the chinlessness of the upper classes ...

[easterbunny.livejournal.com]

Not entirely random - I picked the most prominent of the prominent features highlighted on the article's photo of the skull. It's just that it's opposite to what my first guess would have been - poor nutrition / health / etc would mean less nutrients like calcium (or cause calcium to be leeched), so bones like the jaw would be smaller, not bigger. Maybe the chinless upper classes drank too much gin and tea and not enough milk.

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

I must lend you my book "London Bodies" (a tie-in with an exhbition at the museum of london a few years back).

We were only short in the 17th and 18th centuries due to pollution and malnutrition. Londoners in Roman times were about the same average height as people now. Re: prominence of features. Hmmm, I'm not convinced. But I don't know enough about this to judge. I need to dig out the book again!

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

check that link too. And think of the reconstructed faces of 'bog bodies'.

I'm actually rather intrigued by easterbunny's comment above. If face-mutation is linked to nutrition etc, it might explain the (?imaginary) tendency of the (?British) aristocracy towards rather bland features.

Or have I simply been inclined (by name of the Rose etc) to think of the Historical Poor as ugly strikingly-visaged?

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

Or have I simply been inclined (by name of the Rose etc) to think of the Historical Poor as ugly/strikingly-visaged?

Have you BEEN to Lakeside recently?

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

Have you BEEN to Lakeside recently?

Hevens, no. What do you take me for?

[ladymoonray.livejournal.com]

Double yay about the tenants!

[marypcb.livejournal.com]

1 hibernation!
5 protein!