DYK – The Bush Rat, the Indian National Congress & the Unreliable Servant

What connection could the following have?

Did you know…

… that the Manipur Bush Rat (pictured) was described from the collection of A. O. Hume which he donated after his life’s work of ornithological notes were sold by a servant as waste paper?

The Manipur Bush Rat (Hadromys humei)
Painted by John Gerrard Keulemans (1842–1912) in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1886. (Public domain image)

Allan Octavian Hume Allan Octavian Hume CB (6 June 1829 – 31 July 1912) was a civil servant, political reformer and amateur ornithologist and horticulturalist in British India. Known to most of us as one of the founders of the Indian National Congress, a political party that was later to lead the Indian independence movement, few know that he was an extremely notable ornithologist who has been called “the Father of Indian Ornithology” and, by those who found him dogmatic as “the Pope of Indian Ornithology.”

Allan Octavian Hume
(Image: Frontispiece of “The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds (Vol II) . Public domain)

Hume had a vast network of correspondents all over India who sent him many skins and much information. Read about his network here on Shyamal‘s blog:

The Power of Networks – A 19th Century Tale

His collection has been described as :

“..of eight great rooms, six of them full, from floor to ceiling, of cases of birds, while at the back of the house two large verandahs were piled high with cases full of large birds, such as Pelicans, Cranes, Vultures, &c. An inspection of a great cabinet containing a further series of about 5000 eggs completed our survey.“

Read more about his collection here.

Hume’s interest in life science was lost in 1885 when all his manuscripts were sold by an unscrupulous servant as waste paper and after a landslip caused by heavy rains in Simla damaged his personal museum and specimens.

The Manipur Bush Rat was just one of 258 new species of animals and birds described from specimens of his collection. 

NOTES

Images: From Wikimedia Commons. Click image to reach source.

Text : Wikipedia articles on “Allan Octavian Hume” and “Manipur bush rat“.

DYK – The bacteria that could survive the shock of a supernova

Do you know…

… that an extremophile bacteria Paracoccus denitrificans has been found to grow even under 400,000 times Earth’s gravity, a fact having implications on the feasibility of panspermia?

Paracoccus denitrificans
(Image credit: Richard Evans-Gowing at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK. Colorized by Leila Hornick.. Click image to reach source)

That kind of gravity is found only in cosmic environments such as truly gigantic stars or the shockwave of a supernova. Such a bacteria would theoretically be suited for interstellar travel!

Kepler’s Supernova
“On October 9, 1604, sky watchers — including astronomer Johannes Kepler, spotted a “new star” in the western sky, rivaling the brilliance of nearby planets. “Kepler’s supernova” was the last exploding supernova seen in our Milky Way galaxy. Observers used only their eyes to study it, because the telescope had not yet been invented. Now, astronomers have utilized NASA’s three Great Observatories to analyze the supernova remnant in infrared, optical and X-ray light.”
– Chandra X-ray Observatory
Image Credit : NASA, Public domain

A very, very interesting bacteria, read about it here :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracoccus_denitrificans

Did you know….on Wikipedia

If you visit the Main Page of  Wikipedia, you will find that the left column publicises the featured article for the day.  Featured articles are the best, most accurate and well written articles on Wikipedia. But more interestingly, just below that box, you will find a clutch of “Do you know…s”!

For example, Did you know

• …that the word ecology was coined by Ellen Swallow Richards, the first woman admitted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology?

A “Do You Know..” is an interesting fact from new material added to Wikipedia and is abbreviated as DYK by Wikipedians. 🙂

Here’s how one such set looks like :

The “Do You Know” column on the Main Page of Wikipedia

These facts are taken from the newest articles on Wikipedia. Either the article has been made in the last five days or it has been expanded 5 times in the last five days. The article also needs to be accurate, well-referenced and carefully checked for copyright violation. If it has an image, it must be “free” (free as in free speech, not as in free beer). The fact of the DYK must be interesting, verifiably referenced and accurate.

To get a DYK published, one first has to do volunteer work (vetting at least one other DYK, no “bhai-bandhi” permitted, at peril of your reputation). Then the DYK you submitted goes through checks, and others contribute to the cleanup and improvement of both the hook (as the DYK fact which appears is known) and the parent article. If your DYK submission is found unacceptable it gets axed! If it meets all the criteria, it gets a “Ready to Go” signal. Finally it is added to a queue. Every 8 hours or so, the set of DYKs is replaced with a fresh set.  So its worthwhile visiting the Main Page of Wikipedia often to see interesting stuff!

As is obvious from what I wrote, getting a DYK published is an achievement and genuinely something to be proud of for Wikipedians. My current count is upto 19 and I hope to get the 20th soon.

Predictably most of my DYKs are about nature and natural history with an odd one from a history or social science article that I created or helped expand.

So, in the absence of anything original written by me, I shall present to you my series of nature DYKs for your information and entertainment, dear Reader.

NOTE : “bhai-bandhi” means “I scratch your back, I scratch mine”.