11/13/17 NO A.O.W.

11/20/17 THANKSGIVING BREAK

A.O.W. #12Week of 11/27/2017

Time Machine (1899): When Thanksgiving was weird

Editor's Note: We generally think of Thanksgiving and Halloween as very different holidays, but a century ago Thanksgiving Day featured mischief, masks and trick-or-treating. The Los Angeles Times of Nov. 21, 1897, said Thanksgiving was "the busiest time of the year for the manufacturers of and dealers in masks and false faces. The fantastical costume parades and the old custom of making and dressing up for amusement on Thanksgiving Day keep up from year to year in many parts of the country, so that the quantity of false faces sold at this season is enormous."The strange practice of "Thanksgiving masking" was actually an ancient tradition called mumming, where men in costumes floated from door to door, asking for food and money, sometimes in exchange for playing music. The annual Philadelphia Mummers Parade traces back to this tradition, which some believe began in the 17th century, combining European and African heritages. Thanksgiving was also a time for acts of charity, and, of course, food. The following New York Times article, published on December 1, 1899, explains the traditions of the time in New York City.

Thanksgiving Happiness Reigned Everywhere

Thanksgiving was celebrated yesterday in this city in a happy, orderly and comfortable fashion. The weather was delightfully fine for this season of the year. There was abundant evidence of good fortune and good times. Happiness appeared to reign everywhere. There was much to be thankful for this year. None need have gone hungry.

The chief feature of the day was the street noise, not only of the girls and boys, but of young men and women. Thanksgiving dressing up and parading around was everywhere. Fantastically dressed youngsters and their elders were on every corner of the city. The maskers and mummers wore disguises of a well-known character or myth. There were Fausts, Mephistos, Boers, Uncle Sams, John Bulls, Harlequins, bandits, sailors and soldiers in khaki suits. The mummery, as a rule, was limited to boys in women’s skirts or in masks. Some of those dressed up were on bicycles, others on horseback, a few in vehicles. All had a great time. The good humored-crowd was generous with pennies and nickels. And, the candy stores were very profitable that day.

Many Of The Fortunate Helped The Unfortunate

It is not possible to accurately estimate the Thanksgiving cheer dispensed privately by the fortunate to the unfortunate. Many families in New York informed themselves early in the week of the needs of persons with whom they were acquainted. These families saw to it that those in

need did not go hungry.

The Thanksgiving Day supply ordered to the Tombs Prison was large. Warden Hagan ordered 550 pounds of chicken, 250 pounds of turkey, 200 pounds of roast pork, 150 mince pies and two barrels of apples. At the other district jails in the city, the officials provided a bountiful dinner for the prisoners.

The same occurred in the different institutions of the Manhattan State Hospital for the Insane. About 6,780 pounds of turkey and accompaniments were distributed among the patients. In the female department, there was a concert in the afternoon. In the male department at night, there was a live show. More than six tons of turkey and chicken and 150 barrels of apples, figs, nuts and other fruits and vegetables were used for the Thanksgiving dinners in the various branches of the Charities Department on the islands in the East River and in the city. There were fifteen tons of food in all.

At the Catholic children's shelter, 2,900 boys and girls sat down to a turkey dinner at noon. They attended mass at 6 o’clock, and after that had been allowed to remain all morning in the big playgrounds. In the evening the boys presented a slideshow of pictures taken by them. The residents of the asylum of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society ate 1,000 pounds of turkey for their Thanksgiving dinner. There was music by the asylum storyteller. The Trustees of the asylum, headed by President Levy of the board, were present to see that the children got all the pleasure out of the day that was possible. In the morning, the children were told what Thanksgiving was. In the afternoon, each child received a costume and was sent out into the playground to do as he or she pleased. 

Immigrants Were Included In The Celebration

On Ellis Island, Emile Schwab supplied the immigrants’ dinner yesterday. It was served on the station boat Narragansett, which is at the pier at Ellis Island. The 600 delighted immigrants devoured the turkey and ate the celery thanks to the donor of the feast. After the dinner, a half dozen musicians sent over by Mr. Schwab furnished music for dancing. At all of the 1-cent coffee stands of the St. Andrew’s Society of Manhattan and Brooklyn, a large dinner of turkey, roast beef, vegetables, celery, coffee, pumpkin and mince pie and fruit was provided for all comers.

A.O.W. #13Week of 12/04/2017

R.L. Stine talks "Goosebumps" at first San Diego Comic-Con

"Goosebumps" creator R.L. Stine got a surprise during his first trip to San Diego Comic-Con: The 73-year-old author received the organization's Inkpot Award, which recognizes contributions to the worlds of comics, fantasy and sci-fi. Past recipients include Steven Spielberg, Neil Gaiman and George Lucas."Everyone's being too nice to me," Stine said. "I'm not used to it. I don't get that at home."

Stine received the honor before appearing at a panel on July 20, in which he told stories from throughout his career. He said he was initially reluctant to write scary stories for young readers, but once he came up with the name "Goosebumps," he decided to give it a try. He has now written 130 "Goosebumps" books. !

New Lineup Of "Goosebumps" Comics

Stine also announced that a new line of "Goosebumps" comic books is in the works, and that he's making his first foray into comics with a Marvel series called "Man Thing.""This was like a life's dream," he said. "I'd always wanted to write comic books. I always loved comics, but I'd never written one."Different authors will pen the "Goosebumps" comic books, spinning off characters from Stine's novels. A sequel to the "Goosebumps" movie is also under way, Stine said, and Fox plans to adapt his "Fear Street" books into a series of films.

Pointer Finger Punches Out The Pages

The author also shared several personal revelations. For example, despite having written 330 books, he never learned to type.

"I only use one finger. I don't even use two!" he said, showing his bent, bandaged finger to the crowd. "The finger goes, that's the career."

He said that his son, Matt, never read a "Goosebumps" book growing up, but used to sell parts in future volumes to his elementary school classmates. Stine obliged and wrote them in.

No Struggle For Story Ideas

He said his favorite "Goosebumps" installment is "The Haunted Mask," which was inspired by his son's real-life experience of getting his head stuck in a rubber Frankenstein mask at Halloween. Stine said he never struggles to find story ideas.

"I only try to think of titles and a title will lead me to the story," he said, adding that they often come to him while he's walking his dog.

Responding to audience questions, Stine revealed that his favorite scary movie is "Evil Dead 2" and his favorite Stephen King books are "Misery" and "Pet Sematary."

"I think I stole that plot about four times," Stine said.

But horror movies don't scare him, he said. His scariest experience ever was a real-life one: when he lost his young son at a New York car show.

"That was scary — that incredible feeling of panic," Stine said. "And I lost him for about 20 seconds, but it was horrible."

A.O.W. #14Week of 12/11/2017

Better watch out! Archaeologists find tomb of original St. Nicholas

The good news is: Whoever told you that Santa Claus was an impostor with a fake beard or just a lie made up by your parents to trick you into being quiet was, at minimum, misinformed.Now the bad news: Santa Claus is definitely dead.

Tomb Of Saint Nicholas

Archaeologists in southern Turkey say they have discovered the tomb of the original Santa Claus. Santa is also known as St. Nicholas, and the tomb is beneath the St. Nicholas Church near the Mediterranean Sea. St. Nicholas of Myra, now Demre, was known for his gift-giving and generosity. People believed he'd put coins in the shoes of anyone who left them out for him on his feast day, December 6. He left the gifts anonymously, meaning he did not leave notes to say who the gifts were from. As the story goes, he was a monk who gave away a large amount of money he had inherited. He chose instead to help the poor and the sick. He's also the patron saint of sailors and was, of course, especially fond of children. A patron saint is someone believed to protect a particular place, person, or group of people. In this case, St. Nicholas was the protector of sailors. 

Santa Claus: The Legend Begins

He was so popular, according to History.com, that he survived the Protestant Reformation. This was a period of time in Europe during the 1500s "when the veneration of saints began to be discouraged." In the Catholic Church, people venerate, or honor, saints with feast days. They also are allowed to pray to saints. The Protestant churches discourage this. It wasn't until the 16th century that St. Nicholas began to take on his modern, candy-cane colored form in images and imaginations. In Europe, he became known as Father Christmas.He migrated to the Americas with the Dutch, who called him "Sinterklass" and gathered every year on the anniversary of his death. He started making appearances in stores in the 1840s, according to History.com.

Arguing About Santa Claus

The writer Clement Clarke cemented the American image of Santa Claus with his poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas." That's the one that starts "'Twas the night before Christmas." Now, Santa is nothing less than the rosy-cheeked face of Christmas. He is the subject of movies, traditional parental lies, and debates about childhood materialism. There is an annual argument about whether it's OK to portray Santa as only white. There was a Santa photographed last year with a shovel near a fence on the U.S. border with Mexico, a criticism of U.S. President Donald Trump's immigration policies. And there was a Santa who's been called a liar for a story about telling a dying child that he, the child, was Santa's "number one elf."

A Grave Error?

Through it all, the remains of the real-life St. Nicholas were apparently the subject of a centuries-old case of mistaken identity and grave robbery. According to the British newspaper the Telegraph, St. Nicholas died in A.D. 343 and was buried in a tomb at St. Nicholas Church in Demre, on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey. In 1087, apparently, merchants dug up his bones and smuggled them to the Italian city of Bari, the Telegraph reported. The Basilica di San Nicola is still a holy site, visited by Christians paying their respects to St. Nicholas. But archaeologists say Christians making the pilgrimage or journey to the Basilica di San Nicola are praying to the wrong guy. The bones belong to another local priest, not one of the most famous saints, the Telegraph reported.

Waiting For The Tourists

Archaeologists conducting recent surveys at the church in Demre found gaps beneath it. The shrine, they say, is underneath the church and untouched.

"We believe this shrine has not been damaged at all, but it is quite difficult to get to it as there are mosaics on the floor," Cemil Karabayram, the head of Antalya's Monument Authority, told the Turkish Hurriyet Daily News. Mosaics are artistic patterns, often made from tile, that you see in many shrines. Karabayram told the newspaper that he's confident that archaeologists can reach the tomb.At that point, he believes, nearly 1,700 years after St. Nicholas died, he'll give another gift to the people of Demre: Money from all the tourists who will want to visit.

12/18/17 WINTER BREAK

12/25/17 WINTER BREAK

A.O.W. #15

Week of 01/01/2017

Sailors will use Xbox Controllers to Steer Submarine Periscopes

ABOARD USS JOHN WARNER — The control room of one of the Navy’s most advanced

submarines is full of the latest technology. It has sophisticated computers, flat-screen monitors

and sailors who grew up playing video games.

It can look a bit like a video game arcade, and not just because of the high-resolution graphics.

The Navy is beginning to use an Xbox 360 controller to operate the periscopes aboard Virginia-

class submarines. Periscopes are the peepholes that can see out of the top of a submarine. The

controllers are the same as the ones you find at the mall for the game system.

Out With The Old

Virginia-class submarines are not like other types of submarines people see in Hollywood

movies. They don’t have a traditional rotating tube periscope that only one person can look

through at a time. It’s been replaced with two pieces that rotate 360 degrees. They feature high-

resolution cameras whose images are displayed on large monitors that everyone in the control

room can see. There’s no barrel to peer through anymore. Everything is controlled with a

helicopter-style stick. However, that stick isn’t so popular.

The Navy got together and they asked a bunch of junior officers and others, "What can we do to

make your life better?" said Kyle Leonard, a junior officer. He is also the USS John Warner’s

assistant weapons officer. Leonard said the old periscope controls were clunky and large.

"Skills Sailors Grow Up With"

Lockheed Martin is a company that makes weapons and other military equipment. Officials from

Lockheed Martin and the Navy have been working to use commercial off-the-shelf technology to

reduce costs. They also want to take advantage of the technological skills sailors grow up with.

The use of the video game controller grew out of those efforts. Lockheed Martin calls its

research lab in Manassas, Virginia, the submarine version of “Area 51.” The mysterious

nickname was originally given to a Nevada base where some of the Air Force’s most advanced

and secretive projects are tested.

The Xbox controller is no different than the ones many crew members grew up playing with.

Lockheed Martin says the sailors who tested the controller at its lab were able to figure out how

to use it on their own within minutes. That compared to hours of training required for the

joystick.

The Xbox controller also is significantly cheaper. The company says the handgrip and imaging

control panel that cost about $38,000 can be replaced with an Xbox controller that typically costs

less than $30.

“That joystick is by no means cheap, and it is only designed to fit on a Virginia-class

submarine,” said Senior Chief Mark Eichenlaub. He is the assistant navigator on the John

Warner. “I can go to any video game store and procure an Xbox controller anywhere in the

world, so it makes a very easy replacement.”

Coming Soon To More Subs

The Navy says that the system has gone through extensive testing over the past two years. It says

that the Xbox controller will be included as part of the integrated imaging system for Virginia-

class subs beginning with the future USS Colorado. The sub is supposed to be commissioned by

November. The Xbox controller will be installed on other Virginia-class submarines, such as the

Norfolk, Virginia-based John Warner. It will go through the usual modernization process, said

Brienne Lang, a spokeswoman for the Navy’s program executive office for submarines. The

John Warner had a demonstration model aboard last week as it passed through from Naval

Station Norfolk to Groton, Connecticut.

Looking Forward

Eichenlaub said the Navy doesn’t plan to stop with the Xbox controller. The goal is to develop

technology that young people already are comfortable with, such as working with electronic

touch screens on iPads and in virtual environments.

He said there is an ideal vision of what they'd like to see in 10 years. “There’s basically a glass

panel display with windows, and you can just pull a window of information, review that, push it

off, bring in the next window,” Eichenlaub said.

“They want to bring in sailors with what they have at home on their personal laptop" or home

computer, he said. They want to use "what they grew up with in a classroom.”

A.O.W. #16Week of 01/08/2017

Why do we dream?

In the mid-19th century, two French scholars revolutionized the study of dreams — not with their conclusions, but with their methods. Their names were Alfred Maury and Léon d'Hervey de Saint-Denys. Maury and Hervey wanted to find out why people dream. Maury worked with an assistant. While Maury slept, his assistant crafted a variety of sensory experiences to affect the sleeping body. He might tickle Maury's face with feathers, or wave perfume under his nose. When Maury woke up, he was asked to describe his dreams. The assistant would record the answers, plus gestures and words Maury muttered while still asleep. Based on this research, they believed that external stimuli had an effect on Maury's dreams. They concluded that all dreams are the result of sensory perceptions.

The Marquis d'Hervey de Saint-Denys took a different approach. He proposed that dreams come from memories. His dream lab was simpler than Maury’s: it consisted of a journal, a pencil and his own dreaming mind. Hervey kept a notebook and pencil by his bed. The moment he awoke, he would record his dreams. Later, he would sketch them. More details would surface in his memory. Sometimes, while sketching one dream, he would remember an earlier one. Memory, Hervey concluded, reflects scenes from real life onto our dreams.

Current Theories

Despite a greater understanding of the physiology and neurology of the dreaming brain, scientists today do not agree on why humans (and many mammals, birds and reptiles) dream. Plenty of theories exist, however. Here are three.

We Dream To Help Us Learn

Dreaming consolidates memories from waking life. A 2010 study found that participants who learned to navigate a virtual maze performed better on the task after a 90-minute nap than those who didn’t nap. Those who dreamed about navigating the maze did even better — more than six times better than all other participants.

We Dream To Help Us Unlearn

The Reverse Learning Theory holds that REM sleep reverses potentially damaging neural patterns. Dreams may be easily forgotten in the morning because they are supposed to be forgotten, or unlearned. This may help brains avoid overload from all the information stored during waking hours.

We Dream To Survive

In 2012, J. Allan Hobson and Karl Friston, both neuroscientists, proposed a theory of the dreaming mind as a “virtual reality generator” that helps dreamers make predictions about the

real world. Some evolutionary psychologists believe that dreaming provided early humans a way to rehearse life-threatening situations. A 2004 study showed that rats who are deprived of REM-sleep seem to forget many of their natural survival instincts. Dreams may be a nighttime training ground, with nightmares as our best teachers. A dream of running away from a wild animal or of being unprepared for a test could help you survive a real experience one day.

**EXTRA CREDIT **

A.O.W. #17

Week of 01/15/2017

Scanners Give Scientists Pictures of Genius: This is Your Brain on Math

How Do They Do It?

Why is it that some people are so much better at math than most of us are? Is there something

different about the way they think? Scientists are now starting to answer those questions. They

are beginning to figure out how the brain of a math whiz works. Scientists do not agree on just

what kind of thinking is needed for the highest levels of math. In addition, they do not agree on

what parts of the brain are used. Different parts of the brain are used for different kinds of

thinking.

Scientists Disagree

Some believe it takes more than number skills to do the most complicated kinds of math. They

say such math involves language skills as well. The more complicated kinds of mathematical

thoughts need to be organized like sentences, these scientists say. In addition, some mathematical

ideas can only be expressed through words. Other scientists say math has nothing to do with

language, even at its highest levels. They claim it is tied only to parts of the brain used for

thinking about numbers.

Using Scanners To Learn More

A new study by French scientists suggests the second idea may be the right one. The French

team studied a group made up of 15 mathematicians and 15 non-mathematicians. The non-

mathematicians were all experts in other subjects. All were asked to answer various tricky

questions. When we think, particular parts of our brain start working. As they work they give off

electrical sparks. Machines called scanners are able to pick up these sparks. The sparks show up

on the scanner screen as areas of light and color. 

Watching Brains Do Math

The French scientists used a scanner to see what was going on in their 30 test subjects' brains.

They were able to see which areas of the brain were used during different tasks. The test subjects

listened to 72 complicated mathematical statements. They also heard 18 complicated

nonmathematical statements. They had four seconds to think about each statement. Then they

had to decide if it was true, not true or meaningless. The scientists say they discovered something

special about the mathematicians. When the mathematicians listened to complicated math

statements certain particular parts of their brains started working. 

Putting Brain Regions To Work

These parts of the brain are known as the bilateral intraparietal, dorsal prefrontal and inferior

temporal regions. They usually are not used to deal with language. Instead, they are connected to

thinking about numbers. None of the no-nmathematicians used these areas of the brain for any of

the statements.When the mathematicians listened to nonmathematical statements they did not use

these areas of the brain either. Instead, they used areas of the brain related to language. 

Born To Do Math?

Earlier studies have shown that everyone sometimes uses the parts of the brain that deal with

numbers. We use those parts of our brain when we add or subtract. Even seeing numbers on a

page can turn those parts of our brain on. In fact, humans are probably born with a sense of

numbers. For example, we are probably born with the ability to recognize that two pieces of fruit

are greater than one. The mathematicians in the French study used the parts of the brain we all

use for simple math. However, they used them to solve complicated math problems. 

How Do Advanced Skills Develop?

Most likely there is some link between the math abilities we are born with and the ability to do

complicated math. However, it is unclear how simple skills develop into advanced skills. It is

also not clear why only some people can master complicated math. Scientists hope to learn more

about how such advanced math skills develop. Being able to see brains at work should help them

find many of the answers.