The first ‘Neanderthal cave bear bone flute’ from the Middle Palaeolithic was believed to have been discovered in the 1920s in Potočka Zijalka Jama Cave, Slovenia. But are such finds really ‘Neanderthal bone flutes’ or simply products of Ice Age spotted hyena scavenging activities on cave bear cubs in European cave bear dens? The latter […]
Tag: bear
Mr. Sparks’ predator-intimidating walking stick (new patent)
“Disclosed herein is an apparatus for deterring predators, which may be used as a walking stick until a predator is encountered. Upon encountering a predator, the apparatus allows a user to rapidly deploy a collapsible rigid structure from the interior of the hollow walking stick, which supports a membrane, or set of membranes, that display […]
Enter, pursued by a bear
Do you share the Christmas tradition of watching “Project Grizzly“, the documentary film about Ig Nobel Prize winner Troy Hurtubise? Here’s the film: Troy was awarded the 1998 Ig Nobel Prize for safety engineering, for Troy Hurtubise, of North Bay, Ontario, for developing, and personally testing a suit of armor that is impervious to grizzly bears. BONUS: Farewell, […]
Home-built suits of armor, built to survive against grizzlies or neighbors
Savor, if you will, the lurch of latter-day suits. Compare and contrast these two descriptions of men who scrounged materials to build suits of armor to protect them against possibly malevolent forces. First, Troy Hurtubise, 1998 Ig Nobel Prize winner, who built a suit of armor to protect him against grizzly bears. Stephen Smith wrote […]
Legal scholarship: a stuffed bear, Satan, an ass, and an ax
Some further items from the Lowering the Bar blog’s collection of legal cases worth pondering, if not studying [that’s our description, not necessarily Lowering the Bar‘s, though not necessarily not, either]: Pardue v. Turnage (La. App. 1980) (“An exhaustive reading of the entire record convinces this court that Kenneth Turnage did give his stuffed bear to the Lessards. For the trial […]
How science is done: The case of the bear and the purse
A July 4, 2013 report in the Manchester [New Hampshire] Union-Leader illustrates how to begin a scientific investigation. The report begins: Epping woman suspects a bear stole her purse By JASON SCHREIBER, Union Leader Correspondent EPPING — Isobel Parke has no proof, but she has a hunch that a purse-snatching black bear may be on the […]
Approaches to approaches to bears
If you choose to approach a bear, you also get to choose which way to go about your task. Here are three of the many ways. 1. Troy Hurtubise designed, personally tested, then used a purpose-built suit of armor. Hurtubise was later, in 1998, awarded an Ig Nobel Prize in the field of safety engineering. […]
Bear safety: What the governor can learn from Troy
Today’s news brings yet another example of someone who has not learned the bear-safety lesson taught by Ig Nobel Prize-winner Troy Hurtubise. The Associated Press reports, from the capital city of the American state of Vermont: Vermont governor chased by 4 bears in backyard MONTPELIER — Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin says he was chased and […]
What else does a bear do in the woods?
“What else does a bear do in the woods?”* asks investigator Don Davis, answering his own question by alerting us to this new study: “Behaviour of Solitary Adult Scandinavian Brown Bears (Ursus arctos) when Approached by Humans on Foot,” Gro Kvelprud Moen, Ole-Gunnar Støen [pictured here], Veronica Sahlén, Jon E. Swenson, (2012). PLoS ONE 7(2): e31699. The […]
In pursuit of Shakespeare’s pursuing bear
Tom Levenson pursues the parlous question of Shakespeare’s exiting bear. Levenson writes about the book Verdi’s Shakespeare, by Garry Wills: There, in the first chapter, Wills made mention of Winter’s Tale, and its alpha and omega of stage directions: “Exit, pursued by bear.” … Wills tells me — laconically, first, in the body of his text, writing […]