A new date on human-altered bone from Bluefish Cave puts humans on the American side of the Bering Strait in the middle of the Last Glacial Maximum. At this point this is only a surprise to those who haven't been paying attention, but firm data points are always welcome, and frankly any advance in science is to be celebrated.
On the personal side, I feel obliged to inform long-term readers of some recent losses that are primarily of personal impact. Moby Dent, the Great White Car, is officially dead. We do not yet know the name of the Subaru Forester who has assumed his duties, and it may never matter to blog readers, depending on my future capacity to undertake adventures abroad in the future. Moby was not a car we would ever have chosen on our own, having been bought cheap from a family member in a time of crisis, but he got us where we needed to go that the buses couldn't take us for almost 30 years, and kept patching up and plugging along long after we really should have replaced him. He was the first and is still the only car I've ever known intimately, since I didn't even learn to drive till we'd had him for quite some time, so it is hard not to be sentimental about him. But the Forester is the first car we've chosen together and this is a cheering thing.
We need cheering things, because shortly before Christmas both the cats were mauled by stray dogs. Miss Thai is currently washing herself next to the keyboard, though things were iffy for awhile there; but thanks to the neighbors who drove off the dogs and took us straight to the vet (Moby being immobile and the Forester not yet chosen), the efforts of both our regular vet and the Animal Emergency Room, and the help of our friends who provided further mobility as needed, she survived and is doing well.
Dr. Bruce, the cat in the header, had his neck broken outright, and was dead before anybody knew the dogs had struck.
And Thai, who was his littermate, does not like to sleep with us without him anymore, unless the night is very cold.
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