"While we were there, sitting by the fire one night, I saw an extraordinary-looking dog that appeared to have
two noses. I was sober at the time, and then I remembered the story that the legendary explorer
Colonel Percy Fawcett came back with in 1913 of seeing such strange dogs in the Amazon jungle", explains fellow British Colonel John Blashford-Snell. The double-schnoz phenomenon has been documented in other
species, and has even been
studied,
dramatized, and
synthesized in humans. But a clue has recently been discovered in Bolivia that hints at not just a random mutation, but what might have once been a multi-snouted dog breed.
posted by Toekneesan
on Aug 13, 2007 -
30 comments
Bancroft and Arnesen are in Russia ready to start their newest adventure:
starting Monday, as polar explorers in their own right, they'll try to become the first women in history to ski across the top of the world - two women pulling two sleds across 1,000 miles of frozen ocean. No dogs, no men and one .44 Magnum revolver.
They may not be taking men, but they are taking a laptop so you can
track their progress.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy
on Feb 19, 2005 -
13 comments
The moon landing of its day. Between 1768 and 1771, Captain James Cook and his ship, HMS Endeavour, circumnavigated the globe on the first exclusively scientific voyage. This site presents most of the botanical drawings and engravings prepared by artist Sydney Parkinson before his untimely death at sea, and by other artists back in England working from Parkinson's initial sketches.
posted by thatwhichfalls
on Jan 4, 2004 -
9 comments
This week marks the 90th anniversary of the death of
Robert Falcon Scott and four companions on their return trip from the South Pole. Most of the blame for the failure of the polar expedition has been placed on
critical blunders Scott made in his trek to the pole but Antarctic meterologist Susan Sontag says that although Scott cut his safety margins too close,
unusually cold weather provided the killing blow. On a related subject, next month A&E premires a movie starring Kenneth Branagh as
Shackleton (flash site) who
saved his crew after their ship shattered in Antartic pack ice.
posted by KirkJobSluder
on Mar 22, 2002 -
4 comments
Did China circumnavigate the globe before Magellan?
"When explorer Christopher Columbus landed in America in 1492, he was 72 years behind a Chinese expeditionary force, which had already made its way to the area.
And although Captain James Cook was credited with discovering Australia for the British Empire in 1770, the Chinese had mapped the island continent 337 years earlier."
All this was accomplished by a castrated eunuch named Zheng He.
What do you think?
posted by AsiaInsider
on Mar 4, 2002 -
33 comments
