May 29, 2005
Organizing the sock drawer
Or rather, Xeroxed papers I have unpacked. This is more of an aide-mémoire in blog form than anything else, but hey, if you got any questions about these, ask 'em. Or suggestions for follow-up reading, either. Extra points if you can divine a theme!
8 by 11 papers
Agrawal et al., "Transposition mediated by RAG1 and RAG2 and its implications for the evolution of the immune system", 1998
Balfour, "Antiviral drugs", 1999
Barber, "On the antiquity of east European bridal clothing"
Barber, "On the origins of the vily/rusalki"
Barber, "The curious tale of the ultra-long sleeve (a Eurasian epic)"
Berg, "The rotary motor of bacterial flagella", 2003
Benz et al., "The origin of the Moon and the single-impact hypothesis I", 1986
Birch, "Terraforming Venus quickly", 1991
Bordo and Jonung, "The future of EMU: what does the history of monetary unions tell us?", 1999 [I don't have this in .pdf form?]
Bossy, Recollections of a Romanian diplomat, foreword, excerpts from the Berlin years, 1941 and 1942
Brown & Kornberg, "Inorganic polyphosphate in the origin and survival of species", 2004
Burnett, Magic and divination in the Middle Ages, excerpts on the Experimentarius of Bernardus Silvestris
Burt et al., "The dynamics of chromosome evolution in birds and mammals", 1999
Cederström et al., "Focusing hard X-rays with old LPs", 2000
Clark et al., "Inferring nonneutral evolution from human-chimp=mouse orthologous gene trios", 2003
Coatsworth, "Indispensable railroads in a backwards economy: the case of Mexico", 1979 [I don't have this in .pdf form?]
Ehret, "Derivational morphology in Afroasiatic (Afrasian) reconstruction"
Eichengreen and Sachs, "Exchange rates and the economic recovery in the 1930s", 1984 [I don't have this in .pdf form either? *very* odd]
Freedman, "The topology of four-dimensional manifolds", 1982
Galatin, "The long and short of Viagra: featured molecule of the week"
Gheorghe, "Origin of Roma's slavery in the Rumanian Principalities"
Greene, "Technological innovation and economic progress in the ancient world: M.I. Finley reconsidered", 2000
Heideman et al., "Gauss and the history of the Fast Fourier Transform", 1985
Kayser, "Classics and technology: a reevaluation of Heron's first century AD steam engine"
Kayser, "The purpose of the Parthian galvanic cells: a first-century AD electric battery used for analgesia", 1993
Kennedy, "Strategy fads and competitive convergence: an empirical test for herd behavior in prime-time television programming", 2002
Kirkpatrick and Baez, "Formation of optical images by X-rays", 1948
Hansch and Fujita, "Rho-sigma-pi analysis, a method for the correlation of biological activity and structure", 1963
Horsfall and Tamm, "Chemotherapy of viral and rickettsial diseases", 1957
Land, "A new one-step photographic process", 1947
Lampe, "Varieties of unsucesssful industrialization: the Balkan states before 1914"
Mathews, "David Bowie reinvents self, this time as a bond issue", 1997
Needham, excerpt from Science and Civilisation in China, "The enchymoma in the test-tube: medieval preparations of urinary steroid and protein hormones"
Nicholson, "Ibuprofen", from Chronicles of Drug Discovery, volume 1
Ó Grada, Ireland: a new economic history, chapter 1, "Chronology"
Palairet, "Merchant enterprise and the development of the plum-based trades in Serbia, 1847-1911"
Penrose, "Angular momentum: an approach to combinatorial space-time"
Pritchett, "A toy collection, a socialist star, and a democratic dud? Growth theory, Vietnam, and the Philippines"
Rens et al., "Resolution and evolution of the duck-billed platypus karyotype with an X1Y1 X2Y2 X3Y3 X4Y4 X5Y5 male sex chromosome constitution", 2004
Rockoff, "The 'Wizard of Oz' as a monetary allegory", 1990
Roe, "The ghost in the machine: symmetry and representation in ancient Antillean art"
Salton, "The automatic transcription of machine shorthand", 1959
Sausverde, "Seewörter and substratum in Germanic, Baltic and Baltic Finno-Ugric languages"
Schrijver, "Animal, vegetable and mineral: some Western European substratum words"
Snigerev et al., "A compound refractive lens for focusing high-energy X-rays", 1996
Steiner, "Monopoly and competition in television: some policy issues", 1961
Stone, "Bernardus Silvestris, Mathematicus", 1996
Taylor, "Elements of technical creativity", 1984
Todd, "Karyotypic fissioning and canid phylogeny", 1970
Trask, "Some important Basque words (and a bit of culture)"
Von Neumann & Richtmyer, "A method for the numerical calculation of hydrodynamic shocks", 1950
Wayland, "Apache playing cards", 1961
Whitmire and Wright, "Nuclear waste spectrum as evidence of technological extraterrestrial civilizations", 1980
Wilczak, "The pre-Germanic substrata and Germanic maritime vocabulary"
Witten, "Supersymmetry and Morse theory", 1982
Wolffe and Matzke, "Epigenetics: regulation through repression", 1999
Yang & Bielawski, "Statistical methods for detecting molecular adaptation", 2000
Zapol et al., "Artificial placenta: two days of total extrauterine support of the isolated premature lamb fetus", 1969[thought I had more on artifical wombs? must be a different box, sigh]
assorted Christmas carols with bass part indicated
uncited bibliography on the international arms trade
various formulas for equations of state
various printouts on 1970s US television comedy history
8 by 11 books
Andaya, The world of Maluku: eastern Indonesia in the early modern period, chapters 1 through 4
Archibald, Information, incentives, and the economics of control, 1992
Cipolla, Money, prices, and civilization in the Mediterranean world: fifth through seventeenth century
DeVoto, translation of Heron of Alexandria's Belopoeica (the Artillery Manual) with facing Greek text, notes
Elman, A cultural history of civil examinations in late imperial China, chapter 1
Friedrich, Proto-Indo-European trees: the arboreal system of a prehistoric people, 1970
Guisso, Wu Tse-T‘ien and the politics of legitimation in T‘ang China, chapters 1, 2, 3, and 7
Mirrlees, The Counterplot, chapters 1 through 3
Pearton, Oil and the Romanian state, 1971
Young, Women who become men: Albanian sworn virgins, 2000The Kanun of Lek Dukagjini, foreword, introduction, excerpts, appendices
8 by 14 papers
Bielenstein, "The Chinese colonization of Fukien until the end of T'ang"
Blust, Austronesian root theory, chapters 1 through 7
Blust, "Historical morphology and the spirit world: the *qali/kali- prefixes in Austronesian languages"
Clark, "Evolution, migration, and extinction of Oceanic bird names"
Dummer, "A history of electronic passive components: a personal view", 1996
Gale, "The rolling of iron"
Heaney, "Biogeography of mammals in SE Asia: estimates of rates of colonization, extinction and speciation", 1986
McNeil, "George Constantinesco, 1881-1965 and the development of sonic power transmission"
Palairet, "Primary production in a market for luxury: the rose-oil trade of Bulgaria, 1771-1941"
Polomé, "The non-Indo-European component of the Germanic lexicon"
Roe, "At play in the fields of symmetry: design structure and shamanic therapy in the upper Amazon"
Schrijver, "Lost languages in northern Europe"
Schanuel, "What is the length of a potato?"
Siebert, "The original home of the proto-Algonquian people"
"Some aspects of technological change -- 1900 to 1939: a symposium", 1983
Allen, "Welding"
Brock-Nannestad, "Mechano-acoustic sound recording and reproduction -- refinement and rejection, 1900-1929"
Darling, "Metallurgical developments between 1900 and 1939"
Ellam, "Developments in aircraft landing gear, 1900-1939"
Semmens, "Chemical process engineering at I.C.I. Billingham"
Duffy, "Power, materials and processes"
Earl, "The development of the thermionic valve between 1900 and 1939"
Stevanovic, "The age of clay: the social dynamics of house destruction", 1997
Stokes, "Hydrogen peroxide for power and propulsion", 1998
Rens et al., "Resolution and evolution of the duck-billed platypus karyotype with an X1Y1 X2Y2 X3Y3 X4Y4 X5Y5 male sex chromosome constitution", 2004
Coyu, my question is not so much a "What?" as a "Why?" Doubting I could understand what is in the paper I feel compelled to ask why you have kept it. Some planned future project? Or just a "you never know when you'll need it"?
Posted by: Syd Webb at May 30, 2005 09:57 AMOh, that one's easy enough. It comes from Jennifer A.M. Graves's lab, which is doing work on the genetics of "weird mammals". The male platypus has five different XY chromosome pairs!
There's almost enough data out there to reconstruct what the original mammalian genome looked like. It's already been done for the ancestor of placental mammals. But there seem to have been some wholesale chromosomal rearrangements in between. Marsupials have a very conservative chromosomal architecture, while in the monotremes, it's highly fragmented.
Extra points if you can divine a theme!
The only thing that comes to mind is that you're researching a Guns, Germs and Steel only done right.
Posted by: Syd Webb at May 31, 2005 05:39 AMHow far back is the ur-mammal, anyhow? Triassic?
Barber on the origins of the vily-rusalki sounds interesting. When I corresponded with Blust a few months back, he mentioned a paper on "little people" legends around the Pacific. Apparently there are dozens of them. (I assume the Heaney paper is for your eventual response/review/critique of Blust?)
Gheorghe on Roma slavery: I have yet to meet a Romanian who's aware that there ever *was* Roma slavery. Not concealed, exactly, but apparently it's not in the standard history textbooks.
George Constantinesco, on the other hand, is a big deal. Tesla lite.
I'd be very interested in the Lampe. Why does he characterize it as /unsuccessful/ industrialization? As opposed to, say, late?
Ancient Antillean art? How ancient?
What /is/ the length of a potato?
Doug M.
I need copies. Preferably in .pdf.
And I think my co-workers are channeling you. The platypus thing actually came up about a week ago in conversation, and I can't believe _that's_ a coincidence.
Posted by: Bernard Guerrero at May 31, 2005 05:19 PMI can't believe you don't have anything, like, bedtime stories about mormons for the sleepy, feminine set.
just saying.
I was thinking of you; recently, while visiting central Georgia, I ate a lot of pie for breakfast. after the grits, coffee, sausage gravy on biscuits, and over-medium eggs.
you see then.
Posted by: la loca at May 31, 2005 06:50 PMI'm pretty sure he's got a copy of "Under the Banner of Heaven", though I don't know that that will help you sleep any....
Posted by: Bernard Guerrero at May 31, 2005 07:39 PMIs there any significance to the boldface? None suggested itself to me on a quick read-through.
Rockoff, as I recall, is pro-allegory on the "Is the Wizard of Oz about Populism?" question. I believe I read his article and found it no more convincing than others on the theme, but if I am wrong and he presents good evidence that Baum was allegorizing, then I should probably read it.
Posted by: Joseph Eros at May 31, 2005 11:23 PMSpeaking of reading matter, I've just booktagged you. (Feel free to ignore this if you're not interested.)
Posted by: Charlie Stross at June 1, 2005 01:14 AMThe unifying theme here is that, as always, you scare the crap out of me. But probably in a good way.
Since you mention PDFs, The future of EMU: what does the history of monetary unions tell us; and Exchange rates and the economic recovery in the 1930s are two of the ones you'd noted as not having electronically.
Never knew so many people were interested in my socks!
Doug, the Gheorghe was not very good, given the effort it took finding a copy. The Fonseca and the online book whose name I am blanking on are much better.
It strikes me that, given the ads that survive -- much like Southern versions -- someone could assemble enough price data to do a Fogel and Engermann on Roma slavery. Somewhat different, because they were used for estate trades, not necessarily ag labor (for which they were considered unsuited). Farriers, smiths, musicians, concubines -- interesting how similar myths about Gypsy sexuality and Negro sexuality have arisen -- and so on. Bought and sold.
Didn't I send you a pdf of the Lampe? His thesis (1975) was that pre-WWI, the spurts of Balkan industrialization were small in proportion to the size of the economy (which they were), not self-sustaining, and did not add very much to GDP per.
The transition from peasant farm labor (thought to be) too small &/or too poor to form a significant internal market, to a low-tech smokestack industrial state... is still not well-understood.
Antillean art, from 500 BC to contact. Pottery motifs.
The length of a potato is twice its diameter, according to geometric measure theory.
Bernard, if memory serves, PNAS has a year's firewall up, after which it's public access.
Ms. La Loca, if you ever come across any, please let me know!
Joseph, the boldface indicates Balkan content. The Rockoff is more of an expansion of Littlefield's paper, going in depth about the monetary politics of the Populist era. Rockoff realizes that the idea of the Wizard of Oz as a strict allegory is a little bonkers; but proposes that the monetary references salt the Wizard of Oz like puns (our generation would probably say 'like Easter Eggs'). And enough separate people have seen monetary allegory lurking in the Wizard of Oz for me to believe that some exists. Sort of like certain Pratchetts.
Charlie, I'll post something later tonight. I have three of my tag victims in my sights already...
Andrew, thanks! I am wondering why I printed them out instead of keeping them on disk. There aren't any telltale coffee rings, like on the Lampe.
Posted by: Carlos at June 1, 2005 07:22 PMMs. La Loca, if you ever come across any, please let me know!
any mormons? mormon bedtime stories? sleepy women?? drowsy mormon women with magic underpants??
I know the answer. I am laughing.
I hope you are doing well. I don't actually read this, I just gave you a little google because I was thinking of you so hard lately -- the pie, the psychic reverberations of this time of the year, the mark of a decade ... not compiling a list on the internet, ok. I am stammering. ok. so! we're all swell here.
ok. xo, m
Posted by: la loca at June 1, 2005 10:53 PM[blush] I'm glad you're doing well too.
Posted by: Carlos at June 3, 2005 12:59 AMGlancing over the rading list, I noticed an interest in astrobiology. There's a new blog ("Alien Life"), run by newspaper editor Rob Bignell, which gives daily roundups of the latest news from the various scientific fields that form astrobiology and information about SETI. It's at http://alienlifeblog.blogspot.com/.
Posted by: Paul Whitmore at November 6, 2005 01:44 AM